Here’s a treat! A guest post by Dr. Valerie Weiss, a scientist-turned-filmmaker, who will be in Philadelphia on 10/22 to debut her film “Losing Control” (a romantic comedy about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is “the one.”) I’m planning to attend if you’d like to join me!

It can be tricky when you love two things equally that most people think are opposites. The Science Cheerleaders may know this better than anyone! For me, science and film are those two things. Now that I’ve combined them in LOSING CONTROL, my quirky romantic comedy about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is “the one”, it is easier to see how they fit together. I fell in love with acting when I was a nine years old, and then fell in love with Biology in tenth grade, and like loving two different boys, the bad-boy (film) and the nice-guy (science), these two loves didn’t seem compatible.
Actually, to me, they were always compatible, but it was nearly impossible to explain it to people, and even harder to explain that I thought I could do them both. For most people, art and science are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of how we think. For me, they’ve always been two different approaches to accessing the same thing– how life works. The questions each one asks are what drew me to them in the first place, and the reason I’ve never grown tired of either is the tremendous amount of creativity it takes to do each of them.
The creativity in being an artist is commonly acknowledged, but the creativity in science is often overlooked. In fact, science is just as creative as art. Just believing that there is some order to our extremely varied and wondrous world takes a creative mind. Recognizing central questions and designing experiments to answer them is a creative process. Interpreting data and designing a model for how something works is absolutely creative. For me, science and art have always gone hand-in-hand, and I don’t think I’d be the filmmaker I am today with my specific point-of-view, if I hadn’t been a scientist first. Science and art enrich my experience of each other and the world around me and I am grateful to have both perspectives when telling my stories– being a scientist and a filmmaker has broadened my world rather than narrowing it.

Synopsis of LOSING CONTROL from Philadelphia Film Festival Guide:
Sam (Miranda Kent) is a young scientific genius striving in vain to reproduce the results of a breakthrough experiment she began four
years ago. When her infinitely patient boyfriend Ben (Reid Scott) proposes, Sam”s highly practical mind can”t handle the number of variables that accompany Ben”s offer of marriage and lifelong commitment. When Ben moves to China for a prestigious fellowship, Sam decides to put her love life through a set of trials in order to prove or disprove that Ben is the only one for her. Kent”s performance as an ambitious young woman in her late twenties, unsure of the direction her life is taking, is at once endearing and hilarious. Losing Control”s supporting cast members demonstrate high aptitude for delivery of Weiss”s sharp, witty dialogue. Weiss also proves she possesses a talent for crafting scenes that will encourage almost constant laughter, as Sam”s earnest execution of her romantic research places her in increasingly ridiculous situations. When all parts combine, the result is a highly entertaining independent film with plenty of charm.