Il Diritto di Contare – 5 September – Officine caos – 9.00 p.m.
Scienza Migrante 2.0 project offers 30 free places.
For bookings: https://cineforum-SM-ildirittodicontare.eventbrite.it
September 5, 2025 – Officine Caos, Piazza Montale – 9 p.m.
The event will be introduced by Ilaria Stoppa, a science communicator, and doctor Soda Marem Lo, PhD student at the Computer Science department of the University of Turin. Together, they will provide an overview of the historical, social and scientific context in which the story is set.
The screening is organized in collaboration with Associazione Centroscienza and is part of Cinecortile, a film festival that is part of the end-of-summer cultural program of Officine Caos, neighbourhood house of the Vallette area. Here, culture is central and the means by which artists, cultural associations, and citizens share their passions and projects with the neighbourhood’s audience. An ideal place to screen Hidden Figures, a 2016 film directed by Theodore Melfi and based on real events recounted in the novel written by Margot Lee Shetterly.
We are in Virginia, United States, in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War and the space race. And while everyone looked up at the sky as if they could glimpse the space capsule crossing the Earth’s atmosphere, on Earth, bodies, places, and opportunities were deliberately distinct. Racial segregation was at its peak, and the United States was divided between what was assigned and permitted to African Americans, and everything that was rightfully and legally owned by white people, which was violently asserted. But those were also the years that saw the birth of the Civil Rights Movement, non-violent protests and acts of civil disobedience.
It took several more years before the Civil Rights Act was passed, but sometimes it is where laws fail to reach that people, their abilities, skills, and knowledge come to the fore. The film tells the incredible stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, ambitious African American women with brilliant minds. Their incredible passion for mathematics led them to work for NASA’s West Area Computers, a group of African American female mathematicians who worked as calculators. In NASA’s race against time to catch up with Russia, which had already succeeded in sending humans into space, there was a need to achieve an even greater goal: to send a space capsule with a man on board into orbit around the Earth.
Katherine distinguished herself particularly, and her knowledge of analytical geometry led her to work directly for the Space Track Group set up to finalize the mission. And it was she, an African American woman discriminated against and underestimated for these reasons, who calculated the trajectory that allowed the Mercury program to take astronaut John Glenn into orbit.
This is a compelling and realistic film that transports us back in time, while also making us reflect on discrimination in the present day. It shows us that it is often our own willpower that determines which doors will open for us. With three Oscar and two Golden Globe nominations under its belt, Hidden Figures is not to be missed!
We look forward to seeing you on September 5 at Officine Caos – Piazza Montale (TO).
(The debate will begin at 9:00 p.m., but we recommend arriving 15 minutes early to find a seat)
After the screening, there will be time for further discussion on the social and scientific issues addressed in the movie.
For information: scienzamigrante@unito.it