Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Time

Since March 2020, Draxtor has been following UC Irvine Department of Anthropology researchers Tom Boellstorff, Evan Conaway, Chandra Middleton and Sandy Wenger around Animal Crossing and Second Life to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping online interaction. In the film, protagonists from all over the world open up about their anxieties and everyday challenges during the last two years, and share what virtual worlds and social games mean to them in the context of a global health crisis. Many hours of mixed reality interviews, group discussions in Second Life and a comprehensive survey filled out by over 4000 players/residents provide the basis for a sprawling narrative. What emerges through participant observation is a mosaic of impressions, voices and worlds belonging to people from all walks of life, who are actively engaging in community building in the digital realm as they are trying to make sense of a new age dominated by uncertainty and physical isolation.

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i.Mirror by China Tracy

Cao Fei recorded her experiences within the online social platform Second Life. The result is a wistful, surreal vision of an alternative reality sprung from the pop culture fantasies and hyper-consumerism of contemporary urban China, while also trying to transcend its real-life limitations. It can be seen as an answer to the challenge posed by River Elegy: how to envision a new Chinese destiny founded on principles of individuality, creativity, discovery, and freedom. The film also reflects the contemporary condition of the virtual supplanting our experience of the real.

2007-06-10 | en

Werner We Love You

When Werner Herzog was still a child, his father was beaten to death before his eyes. His mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing and thereupon shipped him off to one of the toughest youth welfare institutions in Freistatt. This was followed by a career as a bouncer in the city's most notorious music club and an attempt to start a family. Today, the 77-year-old from Bielefeld lives with his dog Lucky in a lonely house in the country. Despite adverse living conditions, he has survived in his own unique and inimitable way.

2017-10-06 | de

Synthetic Pleasures

Conceived as an electronic road movie, this documentary investigates cutting edge technologies and their influence on our culture as we approach the 21st century. It takes off from the idea that mankind's effort to tap the power of Nature has been so successful that a new world is suddenly emerging,an artificial reality. Virtual Reality, digital and biotechnology, plastic surgery and mood-altering drugs promise seemingly unlimited powers to our bodies, and our selves. This film presents the implications of having access to such power as we all scramble to inhabit our latest science fictions.

1995-09-13 | en

Down the Deep, Dark Web

A Gonzo-style exploration that goes beyond everything you thought you knew about the dangers, and promise, of the Darknet. Hackers, Cypherpunks and crypto-anarchists guide us ever deeper down this rabbit hole, uncovering the hidden light at the bottom of the deep, dark web.

2016-06-23 | fr

Quecoeur et les garçons

It's quite incredible: this girl is a loving, faithful wife, never a slip or a glance out of place, and now she's met 6 lovers in three months! It's because she leads a double life: on the one hand, cushy evenings at home with her little husband, and on the other, torrid evenings flirting with hotties under the pseudonym Quecoeur. And the husband? He says nothing. Or not much, but he's watching. This is "Second Life" (SL for those in the know): the chance to build a new, more exciting life on your computer...

2007-06-14 | fr

Second Skin

Second Skin takes an intimate look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by online virtual worlds. An emerging genre of computer software called Massively Multiplayer Online games, or MMOs, allows millions of users to interact simultaneously in virtual spaces. Of the 50 million players worldwide, 50 percent consider themselves addicted.

2009-03-07 | en

Head In The Clouds

Laiila’s journey that looking for an answer to the questions that plagued her mind. In the middle of her journey, Ale comes to help Laiila to define what happiness truly is.

2021-07-30 | id

People's Limbo in RMB City

Cao Fei explores a virtual metropolis within the online platform Second Life. The work blends real and fictional elements of Chinese identity and urbanism to comment on capitalism and development in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Marxist iconography intersects with modern corporate structures, creating a dystopian yet whimsical reflection on 21st-century economic realities.

2009-05-22 | en

Reality Fades

Caridad is a woman who lives disconnected from her reality due to the loss of her son, a situation she has not been able to overcome since then, so she enters an emotional state in which reality and fiction combine with each other, preventing She can distinguish between them.

2015-03-25 | es

The Last Blues

On the surface it is an idyll. He lives a happily married life with Judit, a teacher and their eight-year old son, Dani. His best friend, Zoli is also his business partner and between the two of them they own four flourishing bakeries in Budapest. An enviable setting. But in the background a time bomb is ticking away. For years Andris has been living a passionate and blessed second life. The scene is Poland. Pretending to be making business trips, he has been spending half the year in Cracow, with Bea. She is a beautiful young woman and a church-painter. In this life Andris paints Creation in the chapel near the city. He is sensitive and gifted in what he does. In Pest he is a talented businessman, in Cracow an excellent artist. It is as if there were two people in him. What's more: he is satisfied with both lives. And since he is also an excellent conspirator, until this early morning he has never had to make a choice. But now Bea is pregnant, and would like to marry him...

2002-10-10 | hu

Amityville - The Resurgence

When paranormal investigator Sean Austin decides to do some spirit box sessions in front of the DeFeo grave and the Amityville Horror House, the responses he gets are more than he bargained for. This documentary focuses on Sean Austin's personal paranormal experiences having to do with the notorious murder and haunting case. Ralph Sarchie (Writer of Deliver Us From Evil) witnessed firsthand with Sean some of the paranormal evidence that was captured.

2022-02-18 | en

Ten Eleven O Two

Over the weekend of October 11, 2002, my uncle along with two friends set out on a camping trip in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Upon returning home, they were changed men, and recounted tales of alien abduction. Today, only two of the three men are alive to tell the story of what unfolded before, during, and after that fateful outing, and they're convinced it was extraterrestrial. This film explores the haunting accounts of two friends who underwent an alien abduction experience while camping in the remote mountains. Featuring psychedelic visuals and an alien hand print, Ten Eleven O Two opens a plethora of questions and is a must-see for anyone interested in the paranormal. Based on the true life events of Ken Mathis and Adolph Santistevan.

2016-07-15 | en

Pour un vrai socialisme autogestionnaire !

2022-05-17 | fr

The Ukrainian Argument

The collective portrait of the rank-and-file creators of the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity of 2013-2014 and their individual opponents consists of many interviews with supporters and opponents of the Maidan, with the help of which modern history is impartially recorded. Sincere stories of completely different people on both sides of the barricades, different opinions, goals and hopes.

2015-07-18 | uk

Traces of Crimea

A musical portrait of the ethnic minorities of the Crimean peninsula, it explores the sonic diversity from this unique land.

2016-01-30 | tt

What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?

Amanda is a divorced woman who makes a living as a photographer. During the Fall of the year Amanda begins to see the world in new and different ways when she begins to question her role in life, her relationships with her career and men and what it all means. As the layers to her everyday experiences fall away insertions in the story with scientists, and philosophers and religious leaders impart information directly to an off-screen interviewer about academic issues, and Amanda begins to understand the basis to the quantum world beneath. During her epiphany as she considers the Great Questions raised by the host of inserted thinkers, she slowly comprehends the various inspirations and begins to see the world in a new way.

2004-04-23 | en

Beyond Pollution

Barker White documents the environmental impact of the massive BP spill.

2012-01-01 | en

Hit the Lights: The Making of Metallica "Through the Never"

An extended behind-the-scenes look at the making of Metallica "Through the Never".

2014-01-28 | en

Doctors of the Dark Side

Doctors of the Dark Side is the first feature length documentary about the pivotal role of physicians and psychologists in detainee torture. The stories of four detainees and the doctors involved in their abuse demonstrate how US Army and CIA doctors implemented the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and covered up signs of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Interviews with medical, legal and intelligence experts and evidence from declassified government memos document what has been called the greatest scandal in American medical ethics. Based on four years of research by Producer/Director Martha Davis, written by Oscar winning Mark Jonathan Harris, and filmed in HD by Emmy winning DP Lisa Rinzler, the film shows how the torture of detainees could not continue without the assistance of the doctors.

2011-01-01 | en