About the Feature Documentary

SEARCHING: Our Quest For Meaning In The Age Of Science

How is it possible that falling in love, feeling connected to nature, and experiences of awe and wonder, can all arise from the purely material atoms of our bodies? Can science explain such complex human experiences? Can a computer achieve consciousness? And what does it mean to be human in a world of increasing science and technology?

In “SEARCHING: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science,” physicist and novelist Alan Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams) embarks on a highly cinematic journey across time and space to ponder these questions. In the course of his odyssey, he speaks with Nobel-prize winning scientists, leading ethicists and philosophers, faith leaders (including the Dalai Lama), a paralyzed ex-gang member who was the first person to have computer chips implanted in an area of his brain that allowed him to move a robotic arm by pure thought, and even an advanced humanoid android named BINA48, one of the few African-American AI’s.

The feature documentary is presented in stunning Cinema 4K and immersive 5.1 Surround Sound, captivating both the mind and the senses.

Lightman’s journey begins on a warm summer night off the coast of Maine and ends on a freezing mountain peak in the Swiss Alps. Along the way, he shares his astonishment at cave paintings in Les Eyzies, France; marvels at Galileo’s original telescopes in Florence Italy; visits a giant atom smasher in Geneva, Switzerland and the laboratories of scientists engaged in creating a living cell from scratch and of other scientists who built LIGO, which detected gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes, 1.3 billion light years away.

The 99-minute SEARCHING feature documentary is presented in Cinema 4K (4096x2160 resolution) and in 5.1 Surround Sound, and is directed by Geoff Haines-Stiles (senior producer of Carl Sagan’s original Cosmos series, winner of three Emmys and the Peabody award) with an original score by Emmy-nominated cellist Zoë Keating.

At a time of post-pandemic uncertainty and social turmoil, SEARCHING is engaging to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and offers a positive vision of where we humans can find our place in the Universe. Production was supported by the John Templeton Foundation.