Simons Institute Film to Open Heidelberg Laureate Forum's Film Festival

We’re delighted to announce that Until the Sun Engulfs the Earth, a Simons Institute film about computational complexity, will open a mathematics and computer science film festival hosted by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in November.

In this short documentary, some of the world’s leading researchers and rising stars in the field of computational complexity play a memory game, find their way out of a maze, and explore an imagined landscape, as they make sense of the mathematics of proving the hardness of computational problems.

"The film Until the Sun Engulfs the Earth is an excellent example how to explain current research to the general public," remarks Volker Gaibler, head of exhibitions & outreach activities for the Heidelberg Laureate Forum. "It is an entertaining yet informative dive into an exciting field of great relevance."

The film is directed by Anil Ananthaswamy and Kristin Kane, and features participants from the Simons Institute’s Fall 2018 research program on Lower Bounds in Computational Complexity — Paul Beame (University of Washington), Faith Ellen (University of Toronto), Manuel Sabin (UC Berkeley), and Madhu Sudan (Harvard University) — with guest appearances by Simons Institute Senior Advisor Jelani Nelson and Director Shafi Goldwasser.

Until the Sun Engulfs the Earth was released in July 2021 as Episode 2 of the Simons Institute’s popular documentary web series Theory Shorts, which has been reviewed by Forbes magazine. 

​​The annual Film Festival Mathematics – Computer Science is organized by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in cooperation with the Karlstorkino Heidelberg cinema, which received the Cinema That Educates award in 2020 and was runner-up in 2019. Among other accolades, it has been praised for “unusual topics in selection of films” explicitly for the Film Festival Mathematics – Computer Science.

Until the Sun Engulfs the Earth will be the first film shown at this year’s festival, on November 5, 2022. Watch the film here.