Eye of the Dolphin Honored with Special Presentation at Tribeca

(From the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation)Four films have been selected for presentation as part of the Sloan Science and Technology Series at Tribeca, which spotlights festival films that tackle scientific subject matter in a compelling and accurate fashion. Sloan will  co-present four world premieres during the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival – Michael Sellers’ Eye of the Dolphin, the Dara Bratt directed student short In Vivid Detail, Randall Millers’ Nobel Son and Fredi M. Murer’s Vitus and a discussion as part of the Tribeca Talks panel series.  Sloan’s partnership with Tribeca forms part of a broader national program by the SloanFoundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television and theater to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.Eye of the Dolphin is a touching family story about a 14 year-old girl named Alyssa who moves to the Bahamas with the father she never knew. Although it is a rocky start for the two, Alyssa soon embraces her father’s profession as a dolphin researcher and discovers she shares some of his talents. The film premieres Thursday, April 26, 7:00 pm, at the AMC Village VII Theater.In Vivid Detail follows the life of Justin, an architect who suffers from prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that makes him incapable of recognizing faces. An unusual love story ensues. The film stars John Ventimiglia and Piper Perabo and was funded in part by a production grant from the Sloan Foundation’s program with NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The film will premiere as part of Express Stops Only, a shorts program, on Sunday April 29th at 2pm at Borough of Manhattan Community College.About the Alfred P. Sloan FoundationThe New York based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants in science, technology and the quality of Americn life. Sloan’s program in public understanding of science and technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and the Internet to reach a wide, non-specialized audience.Sloan’s partnership with Tribeca forms part of a broader national program by the Sloan Foundation to stimulate leading artists in film, television and theater to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past ten years, Sloan has partnered with six of the top film schools in the country—AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA and USC—and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production. In addition Sloan makes annual awards in film animation and a first feature after graduation. In addition to the Tribeca/Sloan Screenplay Development Program, the Foundation has initiated screenwriting workshops at Sundance and the Hamptons and also honored new feature films such as the forthcoming Dark Matter and Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain