41 INDEPENDENT CINEMAS WIN GRANTS TO BRING SCIENCE TO THE MOVIES

41 INDEPENDENT CINEMAS WIN GRANTS TO BRING SCIENCE TO THE MOVIES

Nationwide Science on Screen® initiative promotes scientific literacy through entertainment

                       

Brookline, MA (Tuesday, September 30, 2025) — Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation named the 2025−26 recipients of their nationwide Science on Screen® grant program this week, awarding grants totaling $250,000 to 41 independent cinemas, museums, and community groups with film programs. Each organization will receive up to $9,000 to create and present three or more Science on Screen events, which pair expert-led discussions of scientific topics with screenings of feature and documentary films. At least one of the films shown by grantees must be a past recipient of the annual Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize or a Sloan Development Grant.

 

Since partnering with Sloan in 2011, the Coolidge has awarded over $3 million in grants to 140 film and science-focused organizations in 45 states (plus Washington, DC) across the country.

 

Science on Screen features classic, cult, and documentary films provocatively matched with presentations by experts who discuss scientific, technological, or medical issues raised by each film. The Coolidge/Sloan Foundation nationwide Science on Screen partnership seeks to inspire in theater-goers an increased appreciation for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics as compelling enterprises and vital elements of a broad understanding of human culture and current events.

 

Over the past 13 seasons, grantees have sold more than 188,000 tickets to over 1,610 Science on Screen events (including free tickets offered by many grantees to their Science on Screen series). Those events have featured presentations by hundreds of scientists, doctors, teachers & professors, farmers, journalists, and more, including at least five Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, ten astronauts, and other luminaries including autism activist Temple Grandin; outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson; surgeon and writer Dr. Atul Gawande; environmentalist Bill McKibben; geneticist George Church; and trailblazing molecular biologist Dr. Nancy Hopkins.

Highlights from the most recent season include:

 

• At Ragtag Cinema (Columbia, MO), Dr. Jennifer First, PhD, MSW, Assistant Professor in the College of Health Sciences, University of Missouri—Columbia, introduced a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Drawing on research from the Midwest and Southeast U.S., Dr. First discussed the intersection of heat exposure, social vulnerability, and adaptive capacity, grounded in the lived experiences of communities on the frontlines of climate change.

• Amherst Cinema (Amherst, MA) explored the “science of the lambs,” probing what Hollywood’s most famous crime thriller (The Silence of The Lambs) tells us about serial killers, psychopathy, and the birth of forensic psychology. Introduced by Erik Cheries, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UMass Amherst.

• At Marquee Arts (Ann Arbor, MI), Dr. Mosharaf Chowdhury, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Michigan, introduced the Sloan Award–winning film Love Me. Dr. Chowdury’s talk explored the implications of AI on climate change, and whether AI will outlive us long after our extinction.

• Before a screening of Shakespeare in Love at the Coolidge Corner Theatre (Brookline, MA), physician and Harvard Medical School assistant professor Dr. John Ross (author of Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough) gave an overview of Shakespeare's social background and the public health disaster that was early modern London. Ross addressed contemporary gossip about Shakespeare, including his involvement in a love triangle that was rumored to have genitourinary consequences.

• The lead character in Insomnia isn’t the only person who could use a nap: a recent study by One Earth found Americans are losing an average of 44 hours of sleep per year. Before a screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago, IL), Rush University Medical Center’s Dr. Upneet Chawla explored how sleep deprivation impacts our lives in small and big ways, and considers how much sleep you really need to properly solve a murder.

“We are thrilled to continue our seminal partnership with the Coolidge Corner Theatre to support the nationwide Science on Screen program,” said Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Sloan Foundation. "These events, which pair expert speakers in over 40 states with popular titles such as Sloan-winning films Oppenheimer, Twisters and Hidden Figures, demonstrate that science can illuminate films just as films can illuminate science. We’re also proud that theaters can select recent Sloan-supported documentaries such as John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office, Sally, and The Cancer Detectives, and bring attention to urgent contemporary issues and inspirational scientific figures.”

Science on Screen was initially conceived and established in 2005 for Coolidge Corner Theatre audiences in greater Boston, which boasts one of the nation’s largest populations of life and physical scientists. In 2011, the Sloan Foundation partnered with the theatre to take Science on Screen nationwide and to make it an integral part of its coast-to-coast film program. To date, the Sloan Foundation has awarded the Coolidge more than $4.5 million to support the program, including the creation of a website (scienceonscreen.org) where information on these programs and archived videos of the speakers’ presentations are available to the public.

 

Science on Screen grant recipients are chosen based on the need for science-related programming in their community, the strength of their proposed Science on Screen programs, the success of past Science on Screen programs (for returning grantees), and their location.

 

All of these grant recipients play a significant role in the cultural life of their communities, with successful track records of building strong community partnerships and producing creative, thought-provoking film programs that both educate and entertain audiences. 

 

The 2025−26 Science on Screen grantees include nine first-time participants:

 

• Campus Theatre, Lewisburg, PA

• Comic-Con Museum, San Diego, CA

• Georgia Southern Museum, Statesboro, GA

• Insights Science Discovery, El Paso, TX

• Manship Theatre, Baton Rouge, LA

• North Bend Theatre, North Bend, WA

• Opelika Auburn Film Arts Collective / Boxcar, Auburn, AL

• Palm Theatre / SLO Film Center, San Luis Obispo, CA

• Wild and Scenic Film Festival, Nevada City, CA

 

Grantees returning to Science on Screen in 2025−26 are:

 

• Amherst Cinema, Amherst, MA

• a/perture cinema, Winston-Salem, NC

• Athena Cinema, Athens, OH

• Athens Ciné, Athens, GA

• Austin Film Society, Austin, TX

• The Avalon Theatre, Washington, DC

• Belcourt Theatre, Nashville, TN

• Block Cinema, Evanston, IL

• Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY

• Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA

• Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY

• Dairy Arts Center, Boulder, CO

• Enzian Theater, Maitland, FL

• Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL

• The Grand Cinema, Tacoma, WA

• Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville, NY

• Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, Moscow, ID

• The Little Theatre, Rochester, NY

• Martha’s Vineyard Film Society, Vineyard Haven, MA

• Mesilla Valley Film Society, Mesilla, NM

• New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF), New York, NY

• Nickelodeon Theatre, Columbia, SC

• Penn Theatre, Plymouth, MI

• Pickford Film Center, Bellingham, WA

• Ragtag Film Society, Columbia, MO

• Rooftop Films, Brooklyn, NY

• Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, Sag Harbor, NY

• Salina Art Center, Salina, KS

• Sidewalk Film Center, Birmingham, AL

• Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY

• Stray Cat Film Center, Kansas City, MO

• Utah Film Center, Salt Lake City, UT