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Aspen, CO (May 6, 2020): Aspen Film, in collaboration with the Eisner/Lauder New Views Documentaries & Dialogue Series, is thrilled to partner with NEON (fresh off its Oscar® win for PARASITE) to present the intriguing new feature documentary SPACESHIP EARTH, streaming nationally beginning on Friday, May 8. The film had its world premiere in January at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary competition section and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize.

“We’re excited to be able to offer Aspen Film viewers the opportunity to experience this wild-ride of a documentary right from our own website,” says Aspen Film’s Executive + Artistic Director, Susan Wrubel. “SPACESHIP EARTH is an enigmatic film for enigmatic times. It’s fantastic that our viewers will experience this film as it launches nationwide – one of the benefits of a virtual presentation.”

To purchase and access the stream starting May 8, viewers can visit AspenFilm.org. Each ticket will be $3.99 and once purchased, buyers will have 72 hours to watch the film. Immediately following the film will be a pre-recorded panel with the film’s director, Matt Wolf and producer Stacey Reiss moderated by Elliot Gerson, Executive Vice President of the Aspen Institute. The film will be available for streaming on Aspen Film’s website for two months.

Directed by Matt Wolf, utilizing archival material and present-day interviews, SPACESHIP EARTH is the stranger-than-fiction adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined deep in the Arizona desert, inside of a miniature replica of Earth’s ecosystem called Biosphere 2. Its conception began at a countercultural commune, where an innovative group of artists, adventurers, and ecologists forged an alliance with a Texas oil scion to create Biosphere 2, an enormous glass terrarium, as a pilot for Mars colonization.

The two-year long experiment chronicling the daily existence of the eight “bioshperians” living in the hermetically sealed glass dome was a worldwide phenomenon. However, shortly after their mission began, the biospherians were faced with difficult challenges—from food shortages to oxygen deprivation—and quickly the media’s fanfare turned to scorn. Cult accusations surfaced about the project’s management, and Biosphere 2 was labeled science fiction, instead of credible science.

Despite these tribulations, the biospherians completed their mission, coalescing to cooperatively manage their impact on a model environment. This riveting story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially reimagine a new world.

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