California Typewriter

Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware

July 2016 •English

We examine the unique manufacturing ecosystem that has emerged, gaining access to the world’s leading hardware-prototyping culture whilst challenging misconceptions from the west. The film looks at how the evolution of “Shanzhai” – or copycat manufacturing – has transformed traditional models of business, distribution and innovation, and asks what the rest of the world can learn from this so-called “Silicon Valley of hardware".

The Joy of AI

September 2018 •English

Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how we have created machines that can simulate, augment, and even outperform the human mind - and why we shouldn't let this spook us. He reveals the story of the pursuit of AI, the emergence of machine learning and the recent breakthroughs brought about by artificial neural networks. He shows how AI is not only changing our world but also challenging our very ideas of intelligence and consciousness. Along the way, we'll investigate spam filters, meet a cutting-edge chatbot, look at why a few altered pixels makes a computer think it's looking at a trombone rather than a dog and talk to Demis Hassabis, who heads DeepMind and whose stated mission is to 'solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else'. Stephen Hawking remarked 'AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. Or the worst'. Jim argues that AI is a potent new tool that should enhance our lives, not replace us.

Machine of Human Dreams

June 2016 •English

A.I. guru Ben Goertzel grew up in a hippie community in Oregon during the Vietnam War. Inspired by science fiction, he imagined a perfect rational world that would transcend 1970s’ America. Ben has dedicated his life to developing OpenCog, a software that models the human mind. If Ben’s design works, OpenCog will become a human-like general intelligence. But for OpenCog to work, it needs a body.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

January 2019 •English

With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.

Peep Culture

February 2011 •English

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.

DCC.....There Is Still Music Left To Write

June 2019 •English

A documentary about the past, present and potential future of the Digital Compact Cassette. Very few people know the true story about, the Digital Compact Cassette or DCC. Was DCC's audio compression the grandfather of all compressed audio formats today? Why did it have such a short life? Why didn't it become popular in more countries? The early termination of the format in 1996, leading to the rejuvenation in 2014 by Techmoan and later the DCCmuseum in countries that rejected the format before. Nearly 2 years of research allowed us to finally get the truth about DCC on camera, presenting DCC enthusiasts the past, present, and potential future of the format we love. This documentary is about the format, the creators, the decision makers, the musicians, the collectors, the geeks, and the audiophiles behind DCC.

An Eye on You: Citizens Under Surveillance

Invalid date •English

Do any areas of our lives escape surveillance any more? Citizens of the 21st Century are the focus of prying eyes, whether they agree to it or not.

How William Shatner Changed The World

November 2005 •English

William Shatner presents a light-hearted look at how the "Star Trek" TV series have influenced and inspired today's technologies, including: cell phones, medical imaging, computers and software, SETI, MP3 players and iPods, virtual reality, and spaceship propulsion.

People's Stuff

January 1992 •English

People's Stuff is a document of six collectors of unusual objects. Creating an environment for storytelling, the subjects reveal inner dreams and motivations as they share both their collections and their lives with the viewer. Charmaine Burrell collects Purple Cows. Fred Crane, Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Iowa, collects jaw harps (he calls the instrument a trump). George Preston collected commercial signs. Ruth Rasmussen is in the Guinness Book of World Records for her salt and pepper shaker collection. Irene Redfearn collects sea shells and Craig Starr, spark plugs. Ruth Rasmussen is in the Guinness Book of World Records for her salt and pepper shaker collection. Irene Redfearn collects sea shells and Craig Starr, spark plugs.

Best of Luck with the Wall

October 2016 •English

A video directed by Josh Begley shows the preposterous effort that would be required to build a border wall.

Cablestreet

June 2019 •Chinese

A cable system designed by controversial Chinese company Huawei Technologies enables communication between an expert and a machine. Time succumbs to space in a "New Cold War" played out in technological materials.

Facial Weaponization Communiqué: Fag Face

November 2016 •English

Facial Weaponization Suite protests against biometric facial recognition–and the inequalities these technologies propagate–by making “collective masks” in workshops that are modeled from the aggregated facial data of participants, resulting in amorphous masks that cannot be detected as human faces by biometric facial recognition technologies.

Television

May 1939 •English

Promotes television sets and the broadcast of New York's first regularly scheduled programs by providing a clinical look at the inner workings of television, including the manufacture of the tubes, lab experiments, and an actual telecast. Shows RCA's production studios in Rockefeller Center, television demonstrations at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair, RCA's Empire State Building transmitter, and remote mobile broadcast units. One of a variety of "Reelisms" shorts produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. and Frank Donovan for RKO in the late 1930s.

Testerep

March 2024 •English

A team of scientists search for the lost island of Testerep in front of the Belgian coast, venturing into artificial landscapes and virtual realities.

The University

October 2016 •English

On a NASA research base in Silicon Valley, there's an organization that's changing the world ... Singularity University (SU). Created by renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, with support from NASA, Google, and others, the university brings in some of the smartest students from around the world, and gives them a crash course in the most powerful exponential technologies on the planet. The students are then given a challenge: create companies that will impact a billion people within ten years. The film follows the students and their companies over five years, as they use the support of scientists, astronauts and billionaires in their attempt to make a dent in the universe.

The Last Move

October 2015 •English

Michael Thomasson has devoted his life to video games. It's been his passion and his obsession for more than three decades. He owns over 11,000 unique game titles for more than 100 different systems. Why? Because there's something wrong in the back of my head, he says. His collection is so large, in fact, it's currently recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. But there's one thing Michael loves more than his games: his family. The Last Move chronicles Michael's attempts to help his mother at an enormous personal cost to himself.

Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa

January 2024 •English

Explores the history, technology, people, stories and industry influence of this lesser-known personal computer. The film profiles important individuals involved in the creation of the computer, plus its life after cancellation, both as an entry-level Macintosh compatible and as a collectible. The work of Douglas Engelbart and his team, plus advances from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) with their Alto and Star workstations were the initial innovators of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), but the Apple Lisa stands as the clear foundation for what we all use today -- Macintosh -- Windows -- iOS -- Android.

Koyaanisqatsi

April 1983 •English

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Land of White Alice

January 1960 •English

Film sponsored by Western Electric (AT&T's equipment manufacturing division), the builder of the United States Air Force's White Alice Communications System in Alaska. Introduces the people and geography of the new state as well as the Western Electric radio-relay system, which links far-flung military sites, alert stations, and missile-warning facilities. Ralph Caplan praised the film's "intrinsically dramatic and highly photogenic" portrayal of communications equipment.

TGV Paris-Bordeaux, la ligne de tous les records

November 2021 •French