How a Mathematician Started Making Movies

Abstract

The author’s father, Luciano Emmer, was an Italian filmmaker who made feature movies and documentaries on art from the 1930s through 2008, one year before his death. Although the author’s interest in films inspired him to write many books and articles on cinema, he knew he would be a mathematician from a young age. After graduating in 1970 and fortuitously working on minimal surfaces—soap bubbles—he had the idea of making a film. It was the start of a film series on art and mathematics, produced by his father and Italian state television. This article tells of the author’s professional life as a mathematician and a filmmaker.