Minna Långström’s documentary film The Other Side of Mars (2019) will have its U.S. premiere at Buffalo International Film Festival, held from October 10–14. In October 24, the film will be screened at Imagine Science Film Festival in New York, held from October 18–25. In addition to director Minna Långström, the scientists starring the documentary film, Vandi Verma, Dawn Sumner, Janet Vertesi, and Grant Wythoff, will attend the screening. In late September, The Other Side of Mars was screened in the Golden Owl Competition for scientific films at Bergen International Film Festival, held from September 25 to October 3.

NASA roboticist and Curiosity rover driver Vandi Verma works on Mars on a daily basis from her desk at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Los Angeles. Her work of navigating the rover in the Martian terrain relies to a large part on images and the technologically advanced use of them. Director Minna Långström, with a visual arts background, creates a philosophical journey into the world of Martian photography. Through the lenses of various experts, we learn how NASA’s’ images are made, used and manipulated for the sake of science, but also for reaching the public. Mars is the ideal place for an investigation into our paradoxical relationship to photography. Do images reflect reality or shape it?

Minna Långström is a media artist who works with short film and installation. Through visual experimentation, her works often deal with screen based visual culture in relation to the subjective human experience. Some of her participatory installations focusses on social perspectives on technologically mediated narratives, while her more recent short films and immersive installations deal with certain political histories – and their influences on the present.