Product Details

• Actors: This is documentary, so there are no actors.
• Directors: George Csicsery
• Format: Full Screen, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: G (General Audience)
• Studio: Zala Films
• DVD Release Date: April 11, 2008
• Run Time: 178 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0883859025
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #75,164 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Hard Problems: The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

About the Director

GEORGE PAUL CSICSERY, a writer and independent filmmaker since 1968, was born in Germany in 1948 and immigrated to the United States in 1951. He has directed 26 films dramatic shorts, performance films and documentaries. His two most recent works are both on mathematical themes. Julia Robinson and Hilbert s Tenth Problem, a one-hour biographical documentary about an American mathematician and her part in solving one of the 20th century s most famous mathematics problems premiered in January 2008. The project is partially supported by the Clay Mathematics Institute and by Margaret & Will Hearst. Other recent films include The Right Spin (2005), about astronaut Michael Foale and his part in saving the Mir space station in 1997, made for Math Awareness Month, and The Thursday Club (2005) an hour-long documentary about retired Oakland policemen who were involved in suppressing the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s George Csicsery is the author and co-author of four feature-length screenplays: He has taught film editing at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco (1982-1997), and general cinema courses to undergraduates at San Francisco State University (1996) and at UC Davis (1998). He lives in Oakland, California.

Product Description

Hard Problems is about the extraordinary gifted students who represented the United States in 2006 at the world s toughest math competition: The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). It is the story of six American high school students who competed with 500 others from 90 countries in Ljublijana, Slovenia. The film shows the dedication and perseverance of these remarkably talented students, the rigorous preparation they undertake, and the joy they get out of solving challenging math problems. It captures the spirit that infuses the mathematical quest at the highest level. The DVD provides two versions of the documentary: the feature that runs 82 minutes, and a classroom version that runs 45 minutes. BONUS FEATURE SEQUENCES Mathematicians in finance (11:16) Families and schooling (15:55) Girls and the IMO (17:03) History of the IMO (7:12) USA and IMO Olympiads 2006-2007 problems and answers - an 82 pp pdf that shows problems and solutions from the competition. Funding for Hard Problems was provided by a grant from The Penn Oberlander Family Foundation and Ellington Management Group, L.L.C. Cinematogrphy: Skip Sweeney and Andras Toth Szollos. Editor, Tal Skloot. Music by Todd Boekelheide and Alex Liu.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thematic but reality oriented, November 28, 2009

By 

Matthew P. Menge "science fan" (Saint Paul, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hard Problems: The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest (DVD)

The 83 minute documentary, which was about the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad did a good job of giving insight into the lives of the contestants, showing what made them so special. But beyond this, and the looming competition with China, there wasn't too much that held the story together. At first I thought this was a flaw in the movie, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that a realistic documentary should be this way. And in fact hearing about the unusual lives of the contestants, who are high school kids, is pretty interesting anyways. Not that there wasn't content to the rest of the film; for example there was a trip through Europe and a high powered summer school that the American contestants went to.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars math club kids liked this, December 9, 2011

By 

mathchemwiz - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hard Problems: The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest (DVD)

I showed this video to my high school math club students. They really liked it. This video at the same time made them feel more 'normal' and also somewhat inferior to these high achievers. It was so different that it was especially interesting.