"Waking up in a Surveillance Society"
Presents a sharp look at the current state of privacy and debates around the rights and desires of individuals, governments, terrorism and the increasing accessibility and use of surveillance.
Social & External
The people behind it
Juan Manuel Biaiñ
Self
Noam Chomsky
Whitfield Diffie
Simon Davies
Kristel Elling
Brian Eno
Kate Gilmore
Emmanuel Goldstein
Amy Goodman
A.C. Grayling
Journalist Assia Boundaoui sets out to investigate long-brewing rumors that her quiet, predominantly Arab-American neighborhood was being monitored by the FBI.
Journalist Sandra Harkow produces a promotional film for the RFID industry. Through a time traveler, she learns about the dark future triggered by RFID chips. Her encounter with the time traveler makes her prick up her ears and she researches the radio chips. The so-called docu-fiction style, which coherently combines real interviews with film scenes, gives the viewer the impression of being part of this reality.
Some things can be seen more clearly at night.. . A film poem about a continent at night, a culture on which the sun’s going down, though it’s hyper alert at the same time, an “Abendland” that, often somewhat self-obsessively, sees itself as the crown of human civilization, while its service economy is undergoing rapid growth in a thoroughly pragmatic way. Nikolaus Geyrhalter takes a look at a paradise with a quite diverse understanding of protection. Night work juxtaposed with oblivious evening digression, birth and death, questions that await answers in the semi-darkness, a Babel of languages, the routine of the daily news, and political negotiation: All this has been captured in images with a wealth of details that make us look at things in a new way. The longer you consider a word, the more distant is its return gaze: ABENDLAND.
Under the pretext of fighting terrorism or crime, the major powers have embarked on a dangerous race for surveillance technologies. Facial recognition cameras, emotion detectors, citizen rating systems, autonomous drones… A security obsession that in some countries is giving rise to a new form of political regime: numerical totalitarianism. Orwell's nightmare.
Control on our daily lives increases and privacy is disappearing. How is this exactly happening and in which way will it effect all our lives?
Pop culture has become “Peep Culture”, where we’ve traded privacy for notoriety and, in the process, reinvented mass culture. But what does it all mean and how is it changing us? Hal Niedzviecki, a 38 year old husband and father, plunges into “deep peep”, with webcams exposing his every move and millions of potential internet viewers invited to watch and engage in the spectacle.
By exploring the relationship between the watched and the watching, our film uncovers the trauma and hope engendered by the Chinese all-surveilling state and lends a voice to those that stand in resilient defiance of such blatant abuse of power.
Could an algorithm be able to authenticate masterpieces more reliably than human experts? And is it possible to create new painting from a long-dead master? This documentary explores the upheavals caused by the arrival of artificial intelligence in the art world.
Facebook, Amazon and Google provide us with around the clock access to the convenient digital world! Surveillance cameras on the streets take care of our security. But who actually collects our fingerprints, iris scans, online shopping preferences, and social media postings? Don't we care about our privacy anymore? In his unique charming and curious way filmmaker Werner Boote travels around the world to explore the "brave new world" of total control. EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL by Werner Boote (Plastic Planet, Population Boom) - an evocative film about the self-evidence of surveillance. In cinemas 25th of December 2015.
Monero Means Money is a Documentary Feature Film that explains Monero, a fungible cryptocurrency. Dr. Daniel Kim gives a deep-dive of the technical, economic, and social aspects of fiat, Bitcoin, and Monero from 2008 to today.
Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China is on its way to becoming the leading world power of the 21st century. What goals is the mysterious autocrat, who was deeply influenced by Maoism in his youth, pursuing? What drives him? In terms of domestic policy, Xi is striving for the "perfect dictatorship"; in terms of foreign policy, he wants to rewrite the international rules.
Sonia Kennebeck takes on the controversial tactic of drone warfare, and demands accountability through the personal accounts—recollections, traumas, and responses—of three American military veterans whose lives have been shaken by the roles they played in this controversial method of attack.
Ghyslain Raza, better known as the “Star Wars Kid,” breaks his silence to reflect on our hunger for content and the right to be forgotten in the digital age.
Love in the Gaze of a Panopticon
an exploration of queerness and fear of illness through personal and shared experiences, reflecting on how they shape the body and identity.
Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.
With the rapid emergence of digital devices, an unstoppable, invisible force is changing human lives in ways from the microscopic to the gargantuan: Big Data, a word that was barely used a few years ago but now governs the day for many of us from the moment we awaken to the extinguishing of the final late-evening light bulb. This massive gathering and analyzing of data in real time is allowing us to not only address some of humanity biggest challenges but is also helping create a new kind of planetary nervous system. Yet as Edward Snowden and the release of the Prism documents have shown, the accessibility of all these data comes at a steep price. The Human Face of Big Data captures the promise and peril of this extraordinary knowledge revolution.
Artificial intelligence, capable of analyzing images from the cameras saturating public spaces, is transforming surveillance. This technology will secure the Paris Olympics this summer, but legislation lags behind its limitless potential. Facial recognition software, already used to identify war criminals in Ukraine and Capitol attackers in the U.S., raises concerns about privacy as powerful algorithms and questionable companies push boundaries.
A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.
Vulgar, taunting texts blow up the phones of a teen and her boyfriend. Who's sending them — and why? This twisty documentary reveals the shocking answer.
In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.
After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom. But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.
A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
With unprecedented access to the official archives and intimate recollections from the band, both current and past, Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition invites fans to experience one of the most iconic journeys in music history. Spanning five decades, this electrifying documentary charts the band’s rise from the pubs of East London to the world’s biggest stadiums. Featuring exclusive interviews with band members and contributors such as Javier Bardem, Lars Ulrich and Chuck D, as well as all-new animated sequences of the band's legendary mascot, Eddie, the film offers a rare and intimate look at Iron Maiden’s uncompromising vision and unwavering connection with their truly global army of fans.
A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
In a crime-plagued neighborhood near Miami, brutal, bare-knuckled backyard fights give young men a chance to earn money -- and self-respect.
A feature length, theatrical documentary on the life of Paul Gascoigne, one of the greatest footballers that ever lived: delving deep into his psyche, vulnerabilities, fears and triumphs.
Have you ever read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies connected to every website you visit, phone call you make, or app you use? Of course you haven’t. But those agreements allow corporations to do things with your personal information you could never even imagine. This film explores the intent hidden within these ridiculous agreements, and reveals what corporations and governments are legally taking from you and the outrageous consequences that result from clicking “I accept.”
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
In the Realms of the Unreal is a documentary about the reclusive Chicago-based artist Henry Darger. Henry Darger was so reclusive that when he died his neighbors were surprised to find a 15,145-page manuscript along with hundreds of paintings depicting The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glodeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Cased by the Child Slave Rebellion.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
Director Dan Farah got 34 senior members of the U.S. Government, military, and intelligence community to come on camera. He says they reveal an 80 year cover-up of the existence of non-human intelligent life and a secret war amongst major nations to reverse engineer technology of non-human origin. The film explores the profound impact the situation has on the future of humanity, while providing a look behind-the-scenes with those at the forefront of the bi-partisan disclosure effort.
This special explores the return of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker to the screen, as well as Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to their classic roles. Director Deborah Chow leads the cast and crew as they create new heroes and villains that live alongside new incarnations of beloved Star Wars characters, and an epic story that dramatically bridges the saga films.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.