• Preview
• Screen
  • Screen 55' Version
  • Screen 84' Version
• Synopsis

CSS Horizontal Sub Menu Css3Menu.com

When filmmaker and amateur astronomer Ian Cheney moves into his apartment in New York, he climbs atop his Brooklyn rooftop to survey the night sky. But bathed in its glow of orange streetlights, the City that Never Sleeps only has five stars to see. What begins as a disappointing autumn evening becomes a journey to answer a simple question: do we need the stars? In showing how artificial light affects our health and planet, The City Dark will blend cutting edge-science with real human stories, all rendered in beautiful HD cinematography. While broadening our understanding of the environmental implications of artificial light, The City Dark will feature an unprecedented portrait of the sky above our heads.

From Mauna Kea to Death Valley to Paris, THE CITY DARK explores the world after dusk, capturing a planet increasingly shrouded in light. As the film investigates the human relationship to the stars, we meet the men and women at the forefront of the science of the night:

? In Hawaii, urban development threatens the success of the world?s
newest optics, where astronomers seek ?killer asteroids? that could
strike the earth.

? Ian meets a woman who patrols downtown city streets to rescue birds that have collided with buildings after city lights disrupted their migratory route, and we learn from ornithologists that an estimated 1 billion birds die this way each year.

? In the desert, Ian meets astronomers seeking to unravel the mysteries
of ?dark matter,? the unseen stuff thought to make up the majority of the universe; their work is threatened by the encroaching city lights from one of America?s fastest-growing regions.

? Ian meets the biologists studying hatching sea turtles whose inborn navigation systems are disrupted by excess artificial light along the coast; 20% of endangered baby sea turtles are lost to disorientation.

? Ian meets with Chad Moore, a geographer who has developed a method for measuring light pollution in the night sky, and learn that only a handful of places on the earth maintain truly dark skies.

? In New York, we encounter the doctors and researchers seeking to understand the most immediate risk associated with light pollution: increased rates of breast cancer, thought to be caused by suppressed
levels of melatonin after exposure to light at night.

The principal visual component of the film is beautifully sequenced timelapse images of the night sky; these portraits of the world above our heads will be forged from tens of thousands of high-resolution still images, strung together to show the stars wheeling above the earth. Each journey is punctuated by engaging animations, which clearly and artistically convey the story of light pollution and its myriad effects. Featuring an original soundtrack by The Fishermen Three and a cast of quirky characters, THE CITY DARK is the definitive new film about light pollution and the disappearing dark.

Ian Cheney is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker. He grew up in New England, where he built his own 6? Newtonian telescope and began photographing the night sky at the age of 15. Ian recently completed work as director/editor of THE GREENING OF SOUTHIE, which was broadcast nationally on the Sundance Channel on Earth Day, 2008, and premiered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. Ian also co-created, co- produced, wrote and starred in KING CORN, which aired nationwide on PBS? Indepen-
dent Lens in April, 2008 and was awarded the prestigious Peabody Award for Electronic Media, and directed the short film Two Buckets which aired on WGBH-Boston in April, 2006. He is a contributing blogger for the Huffington Post, and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, ABC?s Good Morning America, and National Public Radio. He holds Bachelor and Master?s degrees from Yale University, and continues to be an avid amateur astrophotographer.

Read the press review here: New York Times Review

For more information, please visit http://www.thecitydark.com