Ikastetxeak Belodromoan will connect the audience of schoolchildren with outer space

Thousands of girls and boys between the ages of 6 and 11 will enjoy a screening in the Velodrome of a movie linking cinema and science in an activity jointly organised by the San Sebastian Festival, the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and the Filmoteca Vasca. This time round, Ikastetxeak Belodromoan will focus on extraterrestrial life, a subject as classical for the cinema as it is topical for modern science.

The Velodrome’s giant screen will show Little Allan – The Human Antenna / El incidente alienígena del pequeño Alan (Alan giza antena), an animated Danish movie directed by Amalie Næsby Fick on a little alien girl’s relationship with an 11-year-old boy and his UFO-obsessed neighbour. The screening of the film, dubbed into Basque, will be accompanied by an original introduction coming with several surprises. During the sessions, the Velodrome will turn into a temporary improvised Astronomical Observatory to connect with the immensity of the university and ask ourselves, from a scientific point of view, whether life on other planets is possible.

The guest scientist this year will be the astronomer Naiara Barrado-Izagirre from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Barrado has been working for years with the Planetary Sciences Group at the Bilbao School of Engineering, focussed on the study of Jupiter’s dynamic atmosphere, using data received from space missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini and Juno probes, as well as observations with myriad telescopes standing on Earth. The astronomical images are collected both in professional and amateur observatories dotted over the globe and feed the IOPW/PVOL database managed from their own research group. Naiara will guide us through this pre-screening journey.

Since 2019, the screenings for schoolchildren programmed by the San Sebastian Festival enjoy the collaboration of the DIPC and the Filmoteca Vasca. With the slogan Donostia. City of Film, City of Science, more than 13,000 students from some 80 schools attend the six showings at the Velodrome running in the morning, on Friday 20th September and from Monday 23rd to Friday 27th inclusive.

‘ALAN GIZA ANTENA’
Allan is 11 years old, and in his lonely summer he ends up acting as a human antenna for his UFO-obsessed neighbour. But the only thing they find is Britney, an extraterrestrial girl who is doing a school project about the primitive human race. Now Little Allan has to help her get home, while she becomes fascinated with the human species.