The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice: Film Screening and Q&A

Greenland’s Ice Sheet holds vital information about Earth’s past and our future. Filmmaker Kathy Kasic’s vivid documentary, THE MEMORY OF DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND ICE, tells the story of science done by an international science team led by UVM Professor Paul Bierman. From a nuclear-powered, Cold War military base inside the ice sheet, the US Army drilled through nearly a mile of ice and kept going. The 12 feet of frozen soil they recovered, lost for decades, and then re-found, shows the fragility of Greenland’s ice and provides a glimpse into our watery future, when oceans flood the world’s coasts.

This exclusive community film screening will include an introductory presentation from Paul Bierman, author of “When the Ice is Gone,” and an engaging discussion and Q&A with Kathy and Paul moderated by Mikaela Lefrak, Host and Senior Producer of Vermont Edition at Vermont Public. Light refreshments will follow. Free and open to all. Register to let us know you plan to attend. Registration is not required.

This event offers a unique opportunity to see how climate researchers, writers, filmmakers, and journalists come together to tell a compelling story about our future through history, art, and science.

Kathy Kasic is a director/cinematographer and Associate Professor at California State University Sacramento. Twenty years ago she traded researching evolutionary biology in the Ecuadorian Amazon for filmmaking. Since then her artistic vision and craving for adventure have brought her to film off the bow of a ship, underwater in wild mountain rivers, and on the ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica. Using a sensorial emphasis on place to unveil the human relationship with the natural world, her 100+ productions have appeared at international festivals, on television (BBC, Discovery, Smithsonian, PBS, National Geographic), art galleries, museums (The Hirshhorn, Portland Art Museum, The Crocker), and won numerous awards. Kasic field directed for BBC's Earth Shot: Repairing Our Planet (feat. David Attenborough and Prince William). She directed The Lake at the Bottom of the World, a sensory vérité feature film about an international team of scientists exploring a subglacial lake 3,600 feet beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, now on Amazon/iTunes/Curiosity Stream. Her most recent film, The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice has been praised worldwide, winning “Best Environmental Filmmaking” by the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, Best Feature Documentary by the Raw Science Film Festival, and honored with screenings at AAAS, the Greenland Ice Sheet Meeting in Copenhagen, Santiago Wild in Chile, and even a screening at the US Capitol. It is being distributed by Arte and Amazon. Learn more.

Host or Publisher University of Vermont