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Short summary

The story of one of the most important space exploration endeavours of this decade. Just as Gillen's enigmatic Master encourages Franciosi's Apprentice to seek out the key to life amidst a rugged alien landscape, ESA has been on a decade-long ambitious journey of its own, to unlock the mysteries of a comet and the origins of our Solar System with its Rosetta spacecraft, hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth. Ambition complements the ongoing communication about Rosetta and adds a "human dimension" to the scientific and technological achievements of the mission, which include curiosity, drive and ambition.

When the Master starts telling the Rosetta mission story, he begins with the common phrase "Once upon a time..." before being interrupted by the Apprentice. This is a continuity nod to a series of short animated cartoon released by ESA in the previous months via its official Youtube channel, all of them narrating the events of the Rosetta probe (and his lander Philae) as it were a traditional fable, and all of them theme-titled as "Once upon a time".

'A 7 minute trailer to a 20 year mission Tomek Baginski's AMBITION, starring Aidan Gillen (Game Of Thrones) and Aisling Franciosi (The Fall), plays a key part in supporting the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission. The short film tells the story of one of the most important space exploration endeavours of this decade. Just as Gillen's enigmatic Master encourages Franciosi's Apprentice to seek out the key to life amidst a rugged alien landscape, ESA has been on a decade-long ambitious journey of its own, to unlock the mysteries of a comet and the origins of our Solar System with its Rosetta spacecraft, hundreds of millions of kilometres from Earth. "Ambition" complements the ongoing communication about Rosetta and adds a "human dimension" to the scientific and technological achievements of the mission, which include curiosity,drive and ambition.

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: Spilberg
    This is a beautifully produced short film to draw attention to the Rosetta mission that's sent a probe to a comet in order to determine if it contains water, and which then could explain how water ended up on earth.

    Aidan Gillen from Game of Thrones is believable and brings presence to his role of 'Master', teaching a young girl the art of planet building, perhaps? That's not really explained. But it doesn't really matter for the purposes of this short film.

    The effects are top notch and I'd happily watch a full length movie that expanded on the story and characters.
  • comment
    • Author: Vertokini
    I think this short film is really good, as the Rosetta mission is very relevant right now, and because it gives us an idea of what we could potentially learn from landing on this comet. Aidan Gillen and Aisling Franciosi both play very well and give a depth and mystique to the characters, even though we only know them very briefly.

    The special effects in Ambition are awesomely well made, and even though we don't have very much of an idea about what's going on most of the time, it doesn't matter, because it keeps your attention and gets its point through. The effects are classic within Science Fiction movies and look extremely real. The music is also very intriguing and I could listen to it for many hours.

    This short film also teaches you about the mission in itself and what ESA's goals are with it, because Ambition takes place in the future, where the Rosetta mission has been the beginning of that society and our ability to colonize other places of the galaxy. This short film is all about the significance of water for our survival, and how, since comets are made up of ice and dust, we might be able to extract water from them, and therefore find another source of water, if we were to colonize other planets.

    It's very interesting, and I would strongly recommend it. It only takes 5 minutes, after all...
  • comment
    • Author: I ℓ٥ﻻ ﻉ√٥υ
    "Ambition" is a five-minute short film from 2014. The director and one of the writers here is Tomek Baginski. He is an Oscar nominee, who so far has only been known for his animated works, but here he tries his best with live actions. It was probably also partially his fault that it did not work out. The script is very shallow to be honest and I also felt Aidan Gillen ("Game of Thrones") does not give a good performance at all. Aisling Franciosi does the best with what she is given I guess. It's the eternal story of master and apprentice here and it offers really nothing new in terms of that. The only thing somewhat okay are the special effects really and that's also the category where the film was nominated. It's obviously not enough though, so 4 stars out of 10 is still fairly generous at this little movie is a generic prime example of style over substance. Not recommended.
  • Complete credited cast:
    Aidan Gillen Aidan Gillen - Master
    Aisling Franciosi Aisling Franciosi - Apprentice
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