Merlin Stadler’s 3D animated short film Stilled Life was inspired by an actual event; in 2019, the Beresheet moonlander crashed on its approach to the moon. In addition to human DNA, several thousand frozen tardigrades—microscopically small, extremely resistant organisms—were also on board. Stadler uses this event as the starting point for his speculative story about the possible colonization of the moon.
Stilled Life was made possible by the Media Art Award 2025 of the Kunststiftung Ingvild und Stephan Goetz in cooperation with the Sammlung Goetz and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.