The Ball Method — cinema spotlighting women in science

"The Ball Method" is a 2020 short film by Dagmawi Abebe that tells the remarkable story of Alice Ball. The film gives a face and a voice to a brilliant scientist whose name was erased for decades. It highlights her scientific discoveries and the barriers she faced as a young Black woman in an early 20th-century academic world dominated by white men.

A film, a tribute, a restoration

The film explores the creative and historical reconstruction of Alice Ball's work, showing how a 23‑year‑old researcher succeeded where others had failed. It also addresses the appropriation of her research by Arthur L. Dean after her untimely death, and how institutional power allowed her contribution to be obscured. The short joins a broader cinematic movement to rehabilitate overlooked female scientists.