Veranstaltungskalender

This year's Global Science Film Festival will start in Basel on Friday, March 31, 2023. International feature films, documentaries and short films combine current global developments with scientific debates.

At the Basel event, the focus will be on health science topics. After all screenings, the topics will be explored in depth in moderated discussions (exclusively in English) between the audience, the filmmakers and researchers.

Happy Pills

A journey through six different countries and characters into a world where chemistry is the ultimate response to human pursuits of well-being. From antidepressants to opioid pain or stimulant medication, the film questions our consumer society and the so called Eldorado of prescribed happiness.

It is not an investigative documentary but rather a modern fable. What is there in common between a farmer in Niger who takes painkillers to keep on ploughing and a teenage girl in Massachusetts to whom the parents administer her dose of ADHD drug so that she can concentrate in class? The universal obsession with performance, the irrepressible desire to continue to function socially and, therefore, faith in molecules.

Podium discussion: Is it possible to put happiness in a pill?

• Paolo Woods, Director and Writer
• Prof. Dr. Jens Gaab, University of Basel
• Prof. Dr. Undine Lang, University Psychiatric Clinics Basel

Moderator: tba

Festival program

• 11:30: SRF Einstein: Expedition Deep Into the Glacier (Documentary, 39 min) + short films, followed by a podium discussion
• 16:30: The Invisible Extinction (Documentary, 80 min) + short film, followed by a podium discussion
• 18:30: Happy Pills (Documentary, 84 min) + short film, followed by a podium discussion 

Tickets

• SRF Einstein Documentary: Free of charge
• Ticket for one film (The Invisible Extinction or Happy Pills): CHF 18 / Reduced CHF 13 (Students, AHV/IV, Kulturlegi)
• Day pass (two Films): CHF 28 / Reduced CHF 18 (Students, AHV/IV, Kulturlegi)

Tickets are on sale at Eventfrog.

Global Science Film Festival

The onsite screening in Basel of the Global Science Film Festival is organised by Karger Publishers. The University of Basel supports the festival as a science partner.