Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering Tapped By Hollywood To Preview New Documentary About Space Exploration

September 17, 2007

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering will preview the documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the University Center's McConomy Auditorium. The preview is open and free to the public.

Ron Howard, an Academy award-winning filmmaker partnered with THINKFilm to bring the Apollo space documentary to a broad audience of both college students and the public. The film had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for a documentary.

"We selected Carnegie Mellon to show this 95-minute documentary about the Apollo space program because of its top-ranked engineering and research programs," said Nick Tarnowski, the film’s national promotion manager and a public relations professional with Philadelphia-based Allied Advertising. 

   
The documentary begins in the early 1960s, with President John F. Kennedy's stated ambition to put Americans on the moon first, and culminates in Apollo 11's successful lunar landing and the extraordinary global impact that event had. Ten of the surviving astronauts who journeyed to the moon tell their stories in their own words, accompanied by spectacular NASA footage that has never been seen before by the public.

"I think it's a wonderful privilege for our students to be given the opportunity to view, In the Shadow of the Moon, right here on campus; a chance to learn more about an important historic moment from those who experienced it first-hand," said Kurt Larsen, assistant dean of undergraduate studies at the College of Engineering.