Director Paul Devlin's fast-paced documentary follows four bards as they head to the 1996 National Poetry Slam in Portland, OR. The competition begins with the Grand Slam tournament at New York City's Nuyorican Poets Café, and then it's off to the nationals for chaps Saul Williams, Beau Sia, Mums the Schemer and Jessica Care Moore. The quartet vies against 26 other teams from across the country in a dramatic contest awash with tension, enmity and controversy.

With extraordinary access, BLAST exposes a world of risky, hardcore, scientific adventure. The story follows an international team of astrophysicists trying to launch a multi-million dollar telescope on a NASA high-altitude balloon. Their journey to discover thousands of early galaxies takes them from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Revealing frustrations, inevitable failures and ultimate triumph, BLAST puts a human face on the quest to answer our most basic question - How did we get here?