Shawn Snyder’s debut feature TO DUST, co-starring Matthew Broderick and Géza Röhrig, won the Audience Award at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and Snyder won Best New Narrative Director. The film centers on plays a Hasidic cantor who finds himself yearning to know what is happening to his recently deceased wife’s body underground. Going outside the bounds of his community, he enlists the help of a local biology teacher and together they learn about the biology of decomposition. TO DUST, which was supported by the Sloan Foundation through both NYU and the Tribeca Film Institute, made its world premiere at Tribeca on April 22.

After the screening, writer/director Shawn Snyder was joined on stage by producers Emily Mortimer, Alessandro Nivolo, Ron Perlman, stars Matthew Broderick and Géza Röhrig, and forensic anthropologist Dawnie Steadman who advised Snyder on the scientific accuracy of TO DUST. The full discussion, which was moderated by Scientific American editor Jen Schwartz, is available to watch below.