TIFF: Trek Talks: Space, Diplomacy and the United Federation of Planets
Debuting at the height of the US-Soviet Space Race, Star Trek offered an alternative to the adversarial ideology then underlying space exploration in the United Federation of Planets. A kind of intergalactic United Nations, the Federation is dedicated to preserving peace between species, ridding the known universe of war, inequality, hunger, and disease, and upholding the values of cooperation, equality, justice and liberty for all.
The Federation's utopian balance between principled interventionism and self-determination is embodied in the Prime Directive, which decrees that Starfleet — the combined military, scientific, and exploratory forces of the Federation — must not interfere with either the cultural evolution or internal politics of "pre-warp" civilizations to avoid impacting their independent development. A number of storylines in both series and films centre on threats to the Federation (from both within and outside), the precariousness of peacebuilding, the difficulties of diplomacy, and the need to understand and accommodate cultural difference within a collective.
This roundtable discussion on Star Trek, politics, and diplomacy brings together Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, feature-film writer and director Nicholas Meyer (director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) and Margaret Weitekamp, space history curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, to consider what the series can teach us about geopolitics and peacebuilding.
Jeremy Hansen is a modern-day explorer. He began flying at the age of 17, eventually becoming a CF-18 fighter pilot. In 2009, Jeremy was selected from a pool of over 5,300 candidates to become one of two Canadian astronauts. Since then, his intensive astronaut training has included geological expeditions to the High Arctic, exploring alien caves, and conducting scientific experiments in weightlessness.
Nicholas Meyer was born in New York City. After graduating from the University of Iowa with a degree in theatre and film, Meyer worked for Paramount Pictures’ publicity department in New York. Meyer’s award-winning teleplays include ABC’s Judge Dee & Monastery Murders (74) and CBS’ Night That Panicked America (75), and his screenplay for The Seven Per-Cent Solution (76) was nominated for an Academy Award. His directorial credits include Time After Time (79), Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (82), The Day After (83), which was nominated for 14 Emmys, Volunteers (86), The Deceivers (88), Company Business (91), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (91) and Vendetta (99). He wrote the two-night television special Houdini (14) that premiered on the History Channel, and he is currently working on the new CBS Star Trek (17– ) television series.
Margaret A. Weitekamp is a curator in the Space History department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. She obtained a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Weitekamp oversees over 4500 individual pieces of space memorabilia and space science fiction objects, including the 11-foot studio model of the original Star Trek Starship Enterprise. Weitekamp is the co-editor with Anne Collins Goodyear of Analyzing Art and Aesthetics (13) and also the author of Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery (13). Her book Right Stuff, Wrong Sex: America's First Women in Space Program (04) won the Eugene M. Emme Award for Astronautical Literature from the American Astronautical Society.
Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: $23.75 (Adult), $19.25 (Senior/Student), $17.00 (Child/Youth)
Tickets: https://oss.ticketmaster.com/aps/tiff/EN/buy/details/6O1363T3
Organized by: Toronto International Film Festival
Location: TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3C6
http://www.tiff.net/events/trek-talks-space-diplomacy-and-the-united-federation-of-planets/