A Science on Screen® Presentation

This year FilmScene is honored to be welcoming all of the 7th graders in the Iowa City Community School District into our space for a six-film shorts program, most of which are science themed. Are you curious what they watched? Do you want to watch it again, this time with family and friends?

Pre-show presentation Simply the Bats by Meredith Roemerman

Bats are often misunderstood and unfairly labeled as scary or disease-ridden. The truth is, bats play a critical part in a healthy and biodiverse ecosystem. Join Meredith Roemerman from Bur Oak Land Trust as she dispels some common myths and shares how the land trust is protecting habitat for these high-flying mammals.

Post-screening discussion with FilmScene’s Community Engagement and Programming Coordinator Sarahann Kolder and FilmScene’s Education Director Jarrod DeRooi

GENERATION IMPACT: THE CODER (2021, USA) Dir. Samantha Knowles
Jay Jay Patton was only 13 when she designed and built an app to help kids connect with their incarcerated parents, inspired by her own experience. Now she is creating a coding academy to help other kids do the same.

NUBE (2024, France, Hungary, Mexico) Dirs. Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada, Christian Arredondo Narvaez
After witnessing an ancient storm cloud weep its final raindrops and dissolve into sorrow, a billowing white cloud senses that her daughter, a shadowy storm cloud, is in danger.

SEQUIN (2022, USA) Dir. Averi Israel
While waiting for the bus, a spirited young girl befriends a familiar stranger after bonding over a small gift.

AMÉRICA (2025, Peru) Dir. Javier Arias-Stella
América, a 10-year-old girl from a remote village in the Peruvian Andes, dreams of getting a bicycle so she’ll never be late for school again. But to earn the money to buy it, she needs to come up with a plan.

REFUSERS (2024, Netherlands) Dir. Wiep Teeuwisse
A stop-motion musical where discarded trash refuses to be labeled as garbage. When an old paper dances beautifully, a powerful change occurs in how the waste perceives itself.

BAT BOY (2023, USA) Dir. Aaron Lemle
Andre, a young man on the autism spectrum, is passionate about the bats that live in the highway underpass next to his house in East LA. When one day the bats go missing, he enlists the help of a jaded biologist to find out what happened.

Meredith Roemerman is deputy director at Bur Oak Land Trust, a conservation nonprofit based in Iowa City that works to promote biodiversity, protect and restore prairies, wetlands and woodlands in eastern Iowa and connect people with nature. With a background in journalism and an interest in science, Meredith shares the work of the land trust with the public including how restoration projects improve our local ecosystems. She has also overseen the Bur Oak Land Trust AmeriCorps Program for the last 6 years, which is responsible for much of the land trust’s land stewardship work.