Icarus Films Teams With The KimStim Collection For The May 28 DVD Debut Of Director Christian Frei’s Genesis 2.0

Icarus Films will be teaming with The KimStim Collection on May 28 for the domestic DVD debut of documentary filmmaker Christian Frei’s Genesis 2.0.

Back in 1990, sci-fi writer Michael Crichton conjured up a bit of fiction that he titled “Jurassic Park,” which was brought to the screen three years later by Steven Spielberg.   Jurassic Park was a huge hit theatrically and it has spawned a whole film franchise that could go on forever.

Of course it is silly to imagine a bunch of scientists tapping into the DNA of an extinct species and bringing those creatures back to life.  But hell, it was (is) great fun to see Velociraptors and everyone’s favorite, the T-Rex, running loose once again.

But what if the fiction of Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” was the stuff that dreams are actually made of … and what if those dreams are the purview of geneticists who are actually working on bringing extinct species back from the grave?

Documentary filmmaker Christian Frei (Oscar-nominated for his 2001 film, War Photographer) teamed with adventure cinematographer Maxim Arbugaev to interweave two stories — a half-a-world apart — into one where sci-fi does indeed meet the world of science.

Frei works the circuit of researchers engaged in cloning and genetic research, while Arbugaev journeys to the remote New Siberian Islands, where access can only be had a few precious weeks each year — a place every bit as remote as the research station at the South Pole.

It is here that Arbugaev chronicles the search for Mammoth tucks in the frozen tundra — worth their weight in gold (in China) — and the discovery of an intact woolly mammoth, complete with frozen blood (the stuff of DNA).   So dangerous is the trip to this remote outpost that Arbugaev was able to capture on film a polar bear raid on their primitive encampment — a life and death struggle for outright survival again a trio of ravenous hunters, who know no fear of man.

The whole process of “weeding out” genetic material (disease cures) and the recreation of long-gone animals gives rise to all sorts of ethical issues, which are touched upon in Frei’s Genesis 2.0.   At what point does the fiction of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park film franchise meet the real world of genetic engineering?   Where is the line — these days — between science fiction and science reality?

Genesis 2.0 is presented in English, with some Russian (English subtitles when appropriate).