The Lead South Australia

News leads from South Australia

Get The Lead in your inbox. Subscribe

Across the Universe: South Australian Film Viewed in Space

Arts

An animated short film that explores the link between the future of space travel and medicine has won NASA’s Humans In Space Art Video Challenge.

Print article Republish Notify me

Sign up to receive notifications about new stories in this category.

Thank you for subscribing to story notifications.

An animated short film that explores the link between the future of space travel and medicine has won NASA’s Humans In Space Art Video Challenge.

EllaUniversity of South AustraliaISS

“I had high hopes, of maybe a mention, or placing in the animation category, but finding out that we won the overall prize was a great feeling after a few months of waiting in suspense,” says Cahill.

“When the photos of astronaut Terry Virts watching Ella on the ISS came through on Twitter it was incredibly exciting to see and it finally hit us that we had created something special.”

Cahill discovered the competition just two months before the competition’s closing date and says that completing the project in a short space of time around work and study was a challenge.

The winning video beat 64 other entrants from 16 countries around the world to win the competition prize, which included $5000 awarded by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space.

The short film considers how the future of space exploration will benefit humanity by following the story of Ella, a scientist who travels the universe to find a cure for her sister’s illness.

“When writing Ella I researched how the history of space exploration – which is still a young industry – has already benefited humanity in so many ways,” Cahill says.

“I hoped to address the health and travel industries. New resources and technologies will influence how we treat patients in the future. Also, space travel will become a normal life experience as it becomes cheaper for the everyday consumer.”

Ella won first place overall and first place animation in the NASA competition and was nominated in six categories at the South Australian Screen Awards.

Jess has entered Ella to several film festivals around the world and hopes that the team will be able to build on the success of Ella.

The award will be presented on June 5th through an online link-up with NASA representatives.

This is a Creative Commons story from The Lead South Australia, a news service providing stories about innovation in South Australia. Please feel free to use the story in any form of media. The story sources are linked in with the copy and all contacts are willing to talk further about the story. Copied to Clipboard

More Arts stories

Loading next article