Little, Big, and Far

Hoping to find the darkest sky possible, Austrian astronomer Karl travels to a small Greek island after attending a conference in Athens. As he gazes at the stars, the seventy-year-old reflects on his job at a museum, his drifting marriage, the climate crisis, and the achievements of science. Jem Cohen’s essayistic feature moves between cosmic landscape observation, reflections on the history of science, and intimate character study.

When Karl (Franz Schwartz) is asked what he does as an astronomer, he always replies that he wants to understand three things: the large, the small, and the distant. All three are closely intertwined. And because it was always the distant that attracted him most, the now 70-year-old Austrian devoted himself to observing and researching the night sky. But Karl now finds himself at a crossroads in both his life and career. His job as a consultant at a natural history museum is no longer secure; his wife, a physicist, has accepted a professorship in the United States. After a conference in Athens, Karl decides not to return home but instead to travel to a small Greek island, hoping to find a dark sky there and reconnect with the stars. As he observes the universe, he reflects on his faltering marriage, the climate crisis, and the accomplishments of science.

Following Museum Hours (2012), set around the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Jem Cohen’s new, essayistic film combines a character study with reflections on the history of science and questions about our ecological future. Its long production period subverts conventional feature-film practices and allows for a documentary aesthetic. Cohen assembles a wide range of images, allowing space itself to expand: striking earthly landscapes flow seamlessly into distant celestial bodies and worlds that appear both in the sky above and within ourselves — at one point, we even briefly find ourselves on Mars, the target of Elon Musk’s fanciful colonization fantasies. The film’s tone is calm, contemplative, and meditative. Here, Earth itself becomes a celestial body — one from which we should look up at the sky more often. (Anna Steinbauer) (Diagonale 2025)