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@lea_hejn

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🎥 Documentary Director @maiandmiles.film
🎬 Curupira & Surara
🍿Assistant Director #wilding (apple tv) & @bluecarbonfilm (HBO) 🇫🇷 & 🇩🇰 ❤️ 🇧🇷

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The ALT EFF Official Selections 2026 for International Shorts are here! 🎬

Swipe through to discover the films that have made it to this year’s programme.

A Clawsome Tale (Lucie Machin / UK / 22 mins / English / 2025)

A whimsical tale of Lowenna - the lobster, from the lab to the sea!

Through Lowenna’s journey through hatchery, and her offsprings’, who start their lives at the lab before being released back in the ocean - the film reveals an extraordinary project underway to prevent the collapse of European Lobsters. It’s playful, quirky storytelling mixed with marine conservation education. Oh! And talking Lobsters!

@aclawsometale @lucie.machin

A Special Little Fish (Sonya Lee / Canada / 17 mins / English / 2025)

Tiare re-explored her backyard and found wonders. You should too.

Underwater cinematographer and a new-mother, Tiare Boyes takes her camera to her backyard Creek. With her child-like wonder, she seeks for creatures that inspired her professional career, and reflects onto her curiosity and journey into parenthood. She inspires you to explore your surroundings & open your doors to your wildlife neighbours.

@sonyaslee, @tiarebuoys

Architects of the Earth (Elise Orlowski / Togo, Benin, USA / 27 mins / English, French / 2025)

Truly sustainable architecture in a West African community

Through intimate and diverse anecdotes from the Batammariba tribe, the film showcases their traditional architecture - Takienta, which is a UNESCO Heritage. Takienta has answers to climate change, reflects the relationship of the community to their environment, and platforms how modernity & tradition can sync mutually towards conservation in this ever-changing world.

Cone (Ji-in Yoo / Republic of Korea / 16 mins / Korean / 2024)

All he wants to do is enjoy his ice cream.

A seven-year old boy is on a mission to reduce waste, save plastic, and make any small efforts he can because his favourite TV show is going to give him a reward for it. But how does he face the lukewarm interest of his parents and the people around him?

@sending._.you, @if_ji

Hidden Paradise (Kawin Sirichantakul / Thailand / 15 mins / Thai / 2026)

A race against time for two friends an

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September in the City

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Who is Maï 👩‍🔬? Dr. Maïmouna Bocoum is a French-Senegalese physicist. Brilliant, precise, and driven by a deep sense of curiosity, she works at the cutting edge of acousto-optics and quantum mechanics to develop imaging technologies for the early detection of breast tumors.
In 2025 she received the prestigious Irène Joliot Curie prize for ‘Young Woman Scientist of the year’ awarded by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the French Academy of Sciences.

In her own words - ‘Whenever I have the opportunity to speak to an audience of young people— girls and boys alike —I have but one very simple message to convey: cultivate your curiosity for science, go as far as that curiosity takes you, and put everything you have learned through it at the service of the common good’.

From her testimonial on the ESTA website 🔗 - https://www.ensta.fr/actualites/maimouna-bocoum-lart-de-chercher-entre-les-disciplines. #maiandmilesfilm

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Who is Miles 🎶 - @milesjaymusica is a jazz musician from California, classically trained on the double bass and a true physics enthusiast. After living ten years between Cairo and Beirut, he has now returned to the Los Angeles jazz scene where he mixes gypsy jazz with traditional Middle Eastern instruments.

He plays with two main bands @axonorkestra, a gypsy punk band with middle eastern influences and @beatsantique, an electronic world fusion ensemble with a cult following.

Full of humour, passionate about science, philosophical by nature, and deeply rooted in rhythm and experimentation, Miles approaches music like a form of inquiry.

As Miles puts it:
“It’s so exciting to have a partner with whom I can explore. Both our fields deal with waves - light waves and sound waves. In Maï’s case, these waves reveal what’s happening inside the human body, all the way to gravitational waves. In my case, it’s about artistic expression. We go to different workplaces, but ultimately we’re all dealing with waveforms, amplitudes, resonances. That’s what makes our fields, as different as they are, so fascinating to explore together.”. #maiandmilesfilm

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Late in September 2006, on a crisp and sunny fall morning, my father and I arrived in London to move me into LSE student accommodations. When we turned the key into the dorm room I had been assigned, we discovered that it was already being very heavily lived in by what turned out to be a half-French, half-Danish, half-of-a-set of twins, full-on troublemaker.

From London to Lebanon, Scotland to Six Mile, Paris to Portugal, we have been inseparable ever since—navigating life’s highest highs and lowest lows, boyfriends to break-ups, weddings to funerals, dreams come true and raging storms of fortune. Around us we have woven together a deeply integrated community of family & friends, « suffering what there is to suffer, enjoying what there is to enjoy, and continuing to chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo no matter what happens. »

Lea, mon bijou, if this isn’t life partnership I don’t know what is. Thank you for the past 20 years & here is to the next 20 and beyond…and may we still be toasting at Rossodisera in Seven Dials when we’re eighty! 🪷

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📝 ‘Maï & Miles: The Jazziest Story about Physics ever Told’ is a captivating Nouvelle Vague-inspired documentary following the love story of French physicist Dr Maïmouna Bocoum and American jazz musician @milesjaymusica, set in Paris and Los Angeles. 🎥 The film is work in progress - it will be ready in 2028. You can follow it’s making off and behind the scenes journey here @maiandmiles.film 🤗

Summary - Young and deeply in love, physicist Dr Maïmouna Bocoum and jazz musician Miles Jay choose each other over distance, seeking to build a life together in LA. We follow their journey over three years as they overcome a series of obstacles to relocate Maï’s prestigious academic career and pursue their dream of starting a family.

Set against the backdrop of their unique daily lives in the realms of physics and music, the film weaves their love story with a humorous and humble philosophical exploration of the role of curiosity and creativity in science and art.

Amid visa delays, wildfires, political crises, and shrinking support for science and the arts, their personal story becomes a symbolic act of resistance: a celebration of creativity, open borders and scientific collaboration against an increasingly authoritarian political backdrop.

Directed by @lea_hejn produced by Sonja Henrici and @nudge___nudge with co-producers @finalcutforreal @babel_doc and development support by @screenscots and @doc_campus and Camp4science @afo_olomouc development programs. #maiandmilesfilm

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🌞🦁🪬

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a maravilha, with Gio, Lea&Phil🤍

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J O U I L L E T ✨

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Parisian heat

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Every month of summer gets its own movie montage I DONT MAKE THE RULES

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🚀 Apply to the Camp 4Science workshop!

🤝 Camp 4Science is an international workshop for documentary filmmakers developing science feature-length films. It brings together creators, scientists, and film professionals, creating a space for collaboration, mentorship, and new perspectives.

Among this year’s participants was Lea, creator of Maï & Miles – The Jazziest Story about Physics Ever Told — a science-musical documentary inspired by the French New Wave, set between Paris and Los Angeles. 🎶

🧬 Camp 4Science is a place where different disciplines, experiences, and ideas meet. It’s where connections are made, projects evolve, and new ways of telling stories about science emerge. 🧪

🎬 Applications for Camp 4Science 2026/27 are now open!

👉 link in BIO

🎥 @anjamoskvina

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