F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Reaser and Peter Bogdanovich (L-R) give The Broken Code a whirl at the Sloan Film Summit (Photos: STV)

We may not think about it in a movie theater or while reading some of the A-list crap printed on blogs like this, but we all know that science and scientists are pretty mournfully underrepresented in film. A Beautiful Mind is lovely, sure, and Primer and Pi gave lab wonks a hip indie swagger they had not boasted since the advent of the pocket protector. Alas, despite these successes, the bigger picture remains cluttered with everything but chemists, physicists, math prodigies or otherwise. I mean, The Dukes of Hazzard is only a masterpiece of quantitative reasoning if you are trying to figure out how much of your money you can get back halfway through.

Thankfully, the generous folks at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation saw plenty missing in a larger context--and filmmakers should thank their lucky stars for that. After all, the foundation is hosting this week's Sloan Film Summit in Midtown and Tribeca. Held once every three years, the summit invites dozens of student filmmakers and screenwriters from around the country to participate in screenings, readings, discussions and networking events.

We are talking about a gathering that counts Tribeca Film Institute bosses Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal among its chief allies, and which wields the kind of audacity (and juice) that would put Protozoa Pictures president Ari Handel on a panel with Nobel-winning DNA pioneer James Watson. Most importantly, though, the Foundation offers grants and cash awards to young filmmakers whose work emphasizes a blend of personal promise and creative scientific inquiry. If a purer collision of science and cinema exists, for a more determined cause, it would be news to the Foundation's program director Doron Weber.

"We're really building a critical mass now," Weber told The Reeler after Thursday's screenplay reading featuring Alan Cumming, Peter Bogdanovich, F. Murray Abraham, Eddie Izzard, Julianne Nicholson and a number of other notable names. "It takes a generation to change. You can get lucky, but one film won't do it. My own feeling is that we are preparing the next generation of filmmakers to be thinking about this, so when they make a film ten years from now?when they're the next Spielberg, Scorsese or Coppola?we've expanded their vocabulary. They understand that there are great stories and wonderful characters that they can go and use, and they're not intimidated by science."

Among the stories and characters featured Thursday was Hedy Lamarr, the Golden Age siren whose cinematic notoriety overshadowed her little-known prowess as an inventor. NYU alum Gretchen Somerfeld's Face Value recounts Lamarr's real-life struggle to legitimize her work on encrypted wireless communications?technology she hoped would be able to help American submarines sink German ships in World War II.

Cumming and Nicholson read from Signs of Life, Lisa Robinson's clever tale of romance between a video game designer and a neuroscientist. Bogdanovich, Abraham and Izzard joined up with Elizabeth Reaser and Ben Shenkman on The Broken Code, David Baxter's mystery about how scientist Rosalind Franklin may or may not have been ripped off in her quest to reveal the secrets of DNA. And though the script slogged through a few muddy bursts (believe me--you have not lived until you have heard Eddie Izzard insist in earnest, "She was definitely anti-helical"), its reading provided a weird, ultra-rare moment with the controversial Watson in attendance as both a viewer and as Baxter's direct target ("Watson lied about her. Why would he need to slander a dead woman?").

Signs of Life's Alan Cumming (L) with Joe Towne

Weber acknowledged the possible conflict, but nevertheless emphasized that the issues and ideas at hand this week assume an urgency that the Sloan Foundation is more than eager to share. As such, having top talent onstage added a fascinating dimension to the readings; you cannot help but consider the science defined by Cumming and Nicholson, if only because their own chemistry underscores the themes. (Incidentally, Nicholson is supposedly attached to star in the Signs feature alongside Ben Chaplin).

So how did the summit attract these names?

"When Jane [Rosenthal] and Bob [De Niro] put out the word that they're looking for actors, people pay attention," Weber told me. "And then this room is full of 100 of the most incredibly talented filmmakers and screenwriters who are not yet famous because they are in film school, but they are very enterprising. They go out there and they all use their connections and contacts, and they know how to track people down. They're very aggressive, savvy, enterprising and talented--because the work is interesting.

"And that's another thing: Bogdanovich is drawn to the work. I mean, Hedy Lamarr? Think about that: The most beautiful woman of her day turns out to be this brilliant inventor. It's kind of irresistible, and that's a testament to the work as well."

Sadly, the remainder of the Sloan Film Summit down in Tribeca is open to invitees only, but check out the Museum of the Moving Image's Science Cinematheque Web site--a Sloan Foundation project about which The Reeler wrote over the summer--for a sampling of the Summit's short film selections.