Credit: Ágora, Alejandro Amenábar (2009).
Ágora’s main objectives are:
- Present presets on astronomy in non-traditional fields.
- Surprise audiences not always reached by astronomical themes.
- Advance on “public roads” as a space to talk about science.
- Engage millions of people across the country.
- Recreate the communication of science with the public in the same public space, in the manner of the Greek philosophers.
To illustrate the sections of this project, we have chosen images from the film Ágora, by the Alejandro Amenábar, released in Spain on October th9, 2009. The film recounts the life, between the years 391 and 415 of our era of the philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and last librarian of the Library of Alexandria, Hypatia, who was assassinated and dismembered by the followers of Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, after calculating the exact date of the March equinox (to learn more, see the articles by Ari Belenkiy in 2010 and 2016 ).
About this work, Alejandro Amenábar declared:
It’s a movie that challenges the audience in terms of reasoning and trying to get into the story … the movie is about astronomy and I wanted to express concepts that are studied in school – science, math – that are not shown fascinating in the way in which they are taught in modern education. I wanted to translate man’s fascination with the search for knowledge. I wanted to show astronomy and scholars in the most attractive way. Those are the real heroes of the movie.