For the uninitiated, Ariel Waldman is a San Francisco-based explorer and filmmaker who's carved out a fascinating niche documenting the hidden ecosystems most of us never think about — the microscopic creatures thriving in some of Earth's most extreme environments. Think Antarctica, deep ocean floors, and other places where life has absolutely no business existing but stubbornly does anyway. It's the kind of content that makes you feel simultaneously smarter and smaller.

The Vogue Theatre in the Presidio Heights area is a gem of a venue for this kind of event — an old-school single-screen theater that still has actual character, unlike the soulless multiplexes that have swallowed most of the movie-going experience.