Documentary "Neutrino - The Poet Among the Elementary Particles

Duration: 77 min. documentary, followed by a discussion and Q&A with the film makers of +/- 25 min.
Language: English, Dutch, and Japanese spoken. English subtitles.

Together with Bioscopen Leiden, Studium Generale Universiteit Leiden presents Neutrino.

Neutrino is a poetic-philosophical documentary showing the interconnectedness of an elementary particle, ‘countless gods’, picking chestnuts, pixels on a computer screen and the art of tofu making. In encounters with colourful scientists and villagers, the film shows how the elusive elementary particle called ‘neutrino’ manages to bridge the gap between scientific research and village life, between the invisible quantum world and tangible reality, and between the will to know and the magic of not-knowing.

Fascinated by an eccentric elementary particle, the filmmakers embark on a research journey to the Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Detector, a prestigious physics experiment at a depth of more than a thousand meters deep in a mountain in Japan. In the village on that mountain, international scientists live and work alongside the local people and their spiritual leaders. Thus, two worlds come together that at first glance have nothing to do with each other. The living world of the elderly residents of a former mining village, and the research world of international physicists conducting scientific research inside that same mountain. While one group focuses on the visible nature they live with – the mountains, trees, animals, water, and wind – the other looks only at the ‘invisible nature’ of the neutrino; because of the question of whether the so-called ghost particle can explain the origin of the universe. What starts as a personal journey of discovery for physics knowledge transforms into a universal, existential quest.

About the film makers

Hannie van den Bergh and Jan van den Berg made their debut as filmmakers in 2008 with the award-winning documentary Higgs – into the heart of imagination, about the search for the legendary Higgs particle. The works they create, individually and jointly, can be characterized as adventurous dialogues between art and science, with special attention to their social relevance.