Little, Big and Far follows an Austrian astronomer as he begins reevaluating his life and work. He ascends a Greek mountaintop in search of a sky dark enough to reconnect with the stars.
“Jem Cohen’s wondrous, expansive Little, Big, and Far…. A reminder to seize solitude amid the bustle of everyday existence, to be quiet and still, to look up and consider the universe.” ~ Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com
“Jem Cohen brings the same meditative elegance and intellectual curiosity he did to Museum Hours (2012) with his stargazing new feature, again using the cinematic form to patiently interrogate ways of seeing and being.” ~ New York Film Festival
“Moments of sheer beauty… By broadening his imagery to include those obtained from actual outer space, and placing it within the tapestry of his feature, Cohen suggests that modern cinema, unshackled from genre, is more powerful than we may give it credit for.” ~ Conor Williams, Reverse Shot
Director’s Statement: “Little, Big and Far was sparked by the gift of a meteorite. With woefully little background in science, I was stunned to discover that the object in my palm was probably 4.5 billion years old. Wondering how its age was determined and amazed by how far it might have traveled, I embarked on a 7-year exhilarating plunge into scientific curiosity and ways of bringing it into a film. As my new son grew up with the project, he became a “research companion” through his natural love for scientific inquiry. (He spontaneously narrates an unscripted scene about the moon, and our trip to film the eclipse and his reaction to it was vital to the film.)
“I’ve spent over 30 years doing truly independent “hybrid” films made possible via unorthodox long-term, low-budget production strategies. These include using actors (or carefully selected non-actors) placed in uncontrolled real-world environments and filmed in such a way that
passersby are often unaware a film is being made. As I write, direct, edit and serve as primary cinematographer, crews are small and flexible, encouraging a radical approach to cinema made outside of industry modes. As with Museum Hours, my feature about art’s role in daily life, the new film is a fiction/non-fiction hybrid which insists on placing characters, ideas, environments, and political engagement on resolutely equal footing. Astronomy and physics are interwoven throughout, not just as subjects but through textures, sounds, and light, the very fabric of cinema. As my work has always been based on close observation, I sought to embody scientific principles in surroundings I film on a daily basis; snow swirling under a streetlight, rainbows refracted through a chandelier and ocean mist, etc. The combination of guerrilla filmmaking with a wide-eyed, open-minded appreciation of science has led to a highly unusual film that is at once down-to-earth, politically engaged, and aesthetically bold. It is a character study of scientists navigating a troubled new world and a celebration of curiosity and wonder as primal human impulses.”