The Mayfair isn’t just a place for people who love movies – it’s a place for people who make them, too.

That’s why,  Thursday, November 12 at 6:30 PM, our Filmmakers in Attendance Screening Series welcomes high school teachers-turned filmmakers Enrico Lappano and Olga Antzoulatos, who will introduce and discuss their documentary about the mysteries of quantum mechanics, The Matter of Everything.

Vincent Van Gogh once said, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”  Lappano and Antzoulatos started putting small things together three years ago to make a 10-minute short to inspire their students. They ended up with a feature-length documentary which celebrates the small by exploring the mysterious world of quantum mechanics, the science of matter, space and time.

In the film, Lappano and Antzoulatos speak with leading physicists and visit the Fermilab, one of the world’s largest particle accelerators, where some of the newest quantum research is taking place. Describing the Fermilab as a kind of time machine, scientists there are able, through research into the smallest building blocks of matter, to look back at what happened during the Big Bang. They reveal a world more unified than ever imagined.

Quantum mechanics is, as Lappano and Antzoulatos note, “the most battle tested theory in history,” providing us verifiable answers to our deepest questions. Today, with great advances in quantum-related technology, like the Hubble Telescope, scientists are able to do much more. However, as Lappano and Antzoulatos also explore, with great knowledge comes great responsibility. They hope that, above all, the film will inspire viewers to learn more about the quantum world and deepen their appreciation for the beauty and wonder of nature.

The screening is followed by a (from the sound of it very necessary) Q&A with the director and Carleton University particle physicist Prof. Alain Bellerive.

I’ll be there.

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