HMRI Infection Research Program Cinema Event - Contagion

Tower Cinemas is hosting a special screening of Contagion on Friday 18 September, put on by the HMRI Infection Research Program. It's a bit of a double bill: the film runs first, and once the credits roll, the night continues with a live discussion featuring Australian infectious disease experts.

If you've seen Contagion before, you know it's a thriller that plays out like a slow-motion car crash, tracing the spread of a global pandemic from the first case through to the scramble for a vaccine. Watching it in a cinema is one thing, but having experts in the room to pick apart what actually holds up and what's just for the screen is where the real draw is. The discussion is the second half of the evening, so you'll want to stick around after the movie to hear the people who actually work in this field weigh in.

The whole thing is run by the HMRI Infection Research Program, so the experts on the panel are coming from a place of real-world research rather than just talking heads. It's a good chance to get a look at the gap between how a pandemic is portrayed on film and how it's managed in practice, and to ask questions of people who spend their days thinking about these things for a living.

It's a Friday night in Newcastle, and the session runs from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, so it's an early start and an early finish. The screening comes first, followed by the discussion, all under one roof at Tower Cinemas on Friday 18 September.