Edith Widder

The life and career of Dr Edith Widder is a perfect representation of what a trailblazing female encounters as part of her work and personal life. Tasha Van Zandt’s documentary A Life Illuminated examines Widder’s life as a marine biologist and ocean explorer, and the film is, indeed, illuminating. Ninety nine percent of the living space on earth is in the oceans, and yet we know so little about it. Widder’s explorations and discoveries are helping to change that, as shown in this new movie.

To sink into the dark depths of the ocean with pioneering marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder is nothing less than a transformative experience. Watching the documentary A Life Illuminated, we witness Widder’s decades-long research into bioluminescence — the dazzling phenomenon of ocean creatures, far from sunlight, that produce illumination and turn the pitch-black undersea into a galaxy that rivals the cosmos. Widder and her crew capture this breathtaking footage that is itself illuminating: it opens the eyes and the mind to life in a place we would never see were it not for the tenacious work of scientists like Widder.

Filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt’s documentary, A Life Illuminated, takes a deep dive into the brilliant career of oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Edith Widder. a deep seas pioneer whose work in bioluminescence has shed light on the way in which we humans see the seas’ depths and the extraordinary, other worldly creatures who inhabit our planet’s last Earth bound frontier. Filmmaker Van Zant relies on Dr. Widder to narrate her own story, recounting her feminist struggle to be accepted into the male-dominated deep sea scientists profession and sharing her joy at discovering deep sea life.