Chicago Underground Film Festival and Filmmakers Summit 2008

Launch was filmed with the generous cooperation of NASA and the Kennedy Space Center in 2005, while hurricane Ophelia lingered off the Florida coast (just following Katrina’s destruction earlier that year). The film documents the impact of the hurricane during the most widespread and ruinous Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history and the launch of space shuttle Discovery, STS-114, our anxiously awaited return to space following the Columbia disaster of 2003. “Launch” considers the complex relationship between mankind and Earth. Scientists, documentarians, and an increasing number of people worldwide are calling out for the reduction of the damaging human impact on our planet’s environment. As the space shuttle program is phased out over the next three years, new plans for the moon and beyond are being formed, with a new fleet of spacecraft not due until 2014. Meanwhile, critics continue to debate the basis of man-made climate change as well as the importance of costly space programs. Difficult decisions about how we intend to live on earth and how technology should be used must be made.'Launch' takes a stark look at the ultimate underlying goal of any space program – our survival in the universe. The film imagines the day when humankind must face the overwhelming force of nature and attempt to escape it. It is a meditation on the end of an era and the beginning of a drastically different and unpredictable future.