Location
Victoria, British Columbia, V8S 4A4
About this event
Glenlyon Norfolk School proudly presents a special evening for the community!
Join us for a free screening of Hunt for the Oldest DNA, winner of the 2025 Emmy Award for Best Science Documentary, followed by a Question & Answer session with the filmmaker, Victoria-based Niobe Thompson.
7 p.m. Thursday, November 20, 2025.
Space is limited. Tickets are FREE but must be reserved in advance.
Location: Denford Hall, Glenlyon Norfolk School, 781 Richmond Ave.
Hunt for the Oldest DNA tells the story of a maverick gene hunter, whose single-minded pursuit of an improbable scientific vision would tease and torment him before ending with a stunning triumph: a lost world recovered from a spoonful of dirt.
Two decades ago, Eske Willerslev had a radical idea: Could DNA, the fragile chemical code of life, survive intact in frozen sediment for millennia? Fellow scientists called him crazy. But the Danish biologist set out to prove everybody wrong, and his perseverance paid off with a landmark breakthrough–with massive implications for how we understand the deep past.
After many years of failure, Willerslev recovered the genetic traces of a lush forest ecosystem from before the Ice Age, more than two million years ago. The species identified from their DNA lived during the last hot epoch on Earth. Signaling a new era in DNA research, scientists can now use DNA to travel back millions of years and piece together vanished ecosystems. Today, they are poised to harvest the genetic secrets of these ancient worlds to help us adapt to our own climate future.
Meet Writer, Director, Executive Producer Niobe Thompson
Sundance and Emmy-winning filmmaker Dr. Niobe Thompson is a Cambridge-trained anthropologist, known for genre-defying documentaries that reach back to our human origins, explore the mysteries of evolution, and tackle the environmental dilemmas of the Anthropocene. His latest feature documentary, Hunt for the Oldest DNA, won the 2025 Emmy Award for Outstanding Science and Technology, and was named one of PBS NOVA’s “Top 10 Best Documentaries” over its 50-year history. He is the founder of Victoria-based Handful of Films.
