PROJECT
Documentary Series
STATUS
Development
FUNDRAISING GOAL
$13,910,000
GEN Centro de Artes y Ciencias (GEN Center for Arts and Sciences)
GEN Centro de Artes y Ciencias (GEN Center for Arts and Sciences) is a Uruguayan institution designed to produce interdisciplinary projects in order to build bridges between Art, Science and Technology. The institution is a social connector, a cross pollinating platform where scientists, technologists and artists can devise new ways of influencing positive social change. Although it is an independent organization, it works in close collaboration with many governmental agencies, cultural institutions and private companies. It produces films, TV series, documentaries, performing arts and multimedia projects.
One of the main aims of GEN is to stimulate, through widely shared artistic endeavors and large scale media projects, a new social consideration of the possibilities of education, a proactive discussion on how to change and scale traditional ways of producing goods, and an innovative exploration of how technology can be used in combination of scientific research to protect our natural environment. Some of the projects we are developing now are:
“After Capitalism”: a series that explores the proposals on how to reconsider means of production and labor interactions, based in the opinion of academics, social thinkers, environmental scientists and entrepreneurs. The series aims to take the discussion on these issues beyond a polarized argument that places the position of the viewer as either for or against capitalism, introducing a more nuanced and balanced account of contemporary processes that emphasizes information rather than merely political statements. This series, created by Academy award winner Chivo Lubezki is currently being developed by a team that includes Eduardo Porter, celebrated author and columnist for the New York Times. Budget for the development and research project: USD $550,000
Who is in charge of you: a TV series devoted to the perceptual and cognitive human characteristics that make us prone to be manipulated by media campaigns and gullible when presented with fake news. The series intends to contribute in a non-apocalyptic way to process of self-awareness through which audiences can understand that their own ways of interacting with information are indeed part of the problem when dealing with social networks and media. When discourses about a polarized world tend to underline the distance with “the other”, the series proposes a more exploratory approach that involves a better understanding our own nature. This series is in the process of development with the participation of Mariano Sigman, a celebrated neuroscientist and author published all around the world. Budget for the whole series: USD $2,600,000
The Trail of Things: a series aimed mostly at teenagers in which everyday objects are being dismantled, their parts taken apart and visualized as the result of a history that involves intellectual, material and social processes. The idea behind the series is to have a less trivial interaction with goods, tools and devices, and to invite the audience to a journey that often entails several distant locations involved in the production of a single object. Along that journey, the viewers will hear the testimony of miners, factory workers, or scientists from many countries getting to know the human cost and the often unimaginable logistics behind each aspect of our everyday lives. The series in currently being developed and the total budget is: USD $2,350,000.
Late Bloomers: As life expectancy keeps growing, soon there will be more mature people than teenagers. This has ushered a new era of creativity, change and empowering choices for people in their golden years. Late Bloomers is a series about mature people that have taken an unexpected turn in their lives at an advanced age. An inspiring quest to make the most of our wisest years, and to apply our experience to regain a sense of meaning. An engaging narrative, full of amazing personal stories and captured with a deep sense of appreciation for life’s unpredictable twists, in which the search for identity is coincidental with social engagement and collectively significant actions. The total budget is: USD $2,100,000.
I’m All Ears: How often do you find a Grammy and Academy Award winner who is also a scientist? While most pop artists experience sound from a cultural or emotional point of view, Jorge Drexler also sees it from the perspective of a whole career as an otorhinolaryngologist. After devoting many years to sound and hearing both on stage and in the operating room, he embarks on a quest to explore all the wonderful feats that we have built around the simple (and very complex) act of listening. A documentary series full of unexpected facts and wonders, told by one of the most contemporary and charismatic global artists. The aim of the series is to introduce a sense of wonder that is rooted in objective, quantifiable and evidence based information, and more scientific curiosity in a section of the audience that is generally more attuned to social media, pseudo information and opinion-based exchanges. The total budget is: USD $3,250,000.
The Many Meanings of Life: Generally, science related content tend to follow a top-down approach. Episodes usually rely on a voice of authority, who knows the subject and handles down the information to the public. This series, contrary to that common approach, is presented by a music pop star with no scientific training, a simple and lovable guy that very frontally declares his embarrassment about having reached the middle age “not knowing much about anything”. The idea, then, is to explore subjects based on the daily experience of an average human being, but presented in a very attractive and compelling way, sharing the journey to get the desired information a whole sensory experience, rather than just a web search. The project will involve the personal opinions of a great variety of people from the whole world, integrating diverse generations, social origins, ethnicities and sensibilities. The total budget is: USD $930,000.
Origins: Brazil has one of the most diverse, influential and recognizable music traditions in the world. It can be found in every record shop in the planet, and has influenced all forms of art, from poetry to filmmaking. Until now, there has not been a TV series that explored its’ rich musical influences by visiting the original sources and talking to the creators, popular interpreters and musicians that keep those traditions alive. This series will revisit villages in Africa, tribal communities in Amazonia, old towns in Portugal and Morocco, Jazz clubs in New Orleans and New York, immigrant neighborhoods in many cities of Brazil and numerous places in the world in which the Brazilian music has acquired a special flavor of its own, like Japan and France. The series uses music as a way of revisiting the many colonial tides behind demographic and cultural exchanges, and opens the sensibilities of audiences to the unavoidable intermixed cultural backdrop of every global expressive manifestation. The total budget is: USD $2,130,000.
To make a donation in support of GEN Centro de Artes y Ciencias (GEN Center for Arts and Sciences) make out a check payable to: SIMA STUDIOS and mail to 551 Norwich Drive, West Hollywood, CA 90048. SIMA’s Tax ID is 46-2836025. Be sure to write “GEN Centro de Artes y Ciencias (GEN Center for Arts and Sciences)” on the notes/memo line of the check. If you would prefer to make a wire transfer, please reach out to project@simastudios.org.
To donate via Paypal/ Credit Card click below. Every amount is appreciated and an important contribution.