The Bones

Director

Jeremy Xido

Executive Producers

Laura Nix, Ina Fichman

Producer

Ina Fichman

Editors

Nick Taylor, Tom Randaxhe, Jacob Thusen, Boban Chaldovich

Cinematographers

Kaveh Nabatian, Bettina Borgfeld, Johan Legraie, Claire Sanford, Étienne Roussy Léna Mill Reuillard, Sarah Blum

The Bones is a stunning, cinematic exploration of the high-stakes world of dinosaur bone trading, where obsessive collectors compete with museums, scientists, and high-end auction houses to own a piece of the past. It’s a story of intrigue, an illicit caper at the collision of science, commerce, and a dark colonial legacy.

Paleontologist Bolor Minjin, the first scientist to ever repatriate fossils that had been stolen from Mongolia, travels through her homeland training the next generation of Mongolians to be the guardians of the bones. Nizar Ibrahim leads a team in Morocco into the Saharan desert to unearth the next great scientific discovery. Still, he must negotiate with fossil dealers who want big money for the same bones.

Meanwhile, French collector and fossil dealer Francois Escuillier introduces us to the questionable world of buying and selling dinosaur bones, which today can be worth millions of dollars. And eminent paleontologist Jack Horner—the man upon whom Jurassic Park is based—changes the concept of a fossil’s value by breaking them open, searching for molecular clues that will help him resurrect an actual dinosaur.

Part international thriller, part meditation on the nature of existence, the film reveals the hidden world of passionate, globetrotting scientists and fossil dealers battling over the meaning of The Bones and our uncertain future.

Post-screening discussion with director Jeremy Xido, and producer Ina Fichman, moderated by Ian Miller, Chief Science & Innovation Officer, National Geographic.

 

Director, The Bones

Originally from Detroit, Jeremy Xido graduated cum laude in Painting and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, NY and trained at the Actor’s Studio. A Fulbright and Guggenheim recipient, he’s the artistic co-director of performance/film company CABULA6, voted “Company of the Year 2009” by Ballettanz, and awarded “Outstanding Artist of the Year 2010” by the Austrian Ministry of the Arts. Jeremy’s directing credits include the award-winning feature documentary Death Metal Angola, the six-part Crime Europe series, the short documentary Macondo, and several short fiction films. He’s known in Europe as a performance artist with a unique artistic voice and approach to stage and film, blending emotionally gripping personal stories with the larger social contexts within which they emerge – including the trilogy, The Angola Project (premiered in Impulstanz, Vienna and PS122, NYC). Working as a dancer, actor, and filmmaker, he has performed and presented work worldwide on stage, TV, and in cinema. In addition to his work on Sons of Detroit, he is writing a feature film script set in Detroit amid the housing crisis of 2010.