Other Worlds (2018)

Other Worlds (2018)

The narrated film Other Worlds is an evocation of loss. Humans have always endeavoured to look deep into space, to develop tools to see further or more clearly. The history and philosophy of astrophysics is littered with obsolete theories of ‘other worlds’. These worlds, observed through early telescopes or by the naked eye are speculative, and combined with an understanding of natural terrestrial phenomena and imagination often tell us more about matters on earth rather than these other worlds themselves. Records of these observations or theories tell of longing and a desire to temporarily inhabit, if only perceptually, these other places, to couple the earth and its inhabitants to what might have been, to the earth’s doppelganger. At one time our moon was thought to be a vast celestial mirror reflecting an image of the earth back to all those gazing upon the lunar surface. And if we were to see the moon in more detail we might have just caught a glimpse of ourselves, at a remove, to see our habitat as a whole, a unique and separate entity distant in the blackness of space. Other Worlds is filmed in an old observatory in California, where the exquisite beauty of the telescopic mechanics are depicted, in Kielder Observatory, Northumberland UK and The Royal Astrological Society in London, alongside shots of our atmosphere and weather.