Tag Archives: media

Artificial Immortality

If you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you? Until this decade, that question was the stuff of science fiction, but now experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics suggest it will indeed be possible.

This cinematic documentary explores the latest technological advancements in AI, robotics and biotech, and poses the question: what is the essence of the human mind, and can this be replicated? Or even more unsettling, could we one day meet cloned versions of ourselves – clones which are better, smarter, and immortal? 

This film explores these questions with visionaries including: Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence, Hiroshi Ishiguro, developer of his own uncannily realistic clone Geminoid; Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human; Ben Goertzel, founder of Singularity.net who coined the term Artificial General Intelligence; and Deepak Chopra, who is creating his own A.I. mind twin. These visionaries see humanity advancing toward a new age of post-biological life, a world of intelligence without bodies, immortal identity without the limitations of disease, death, and unfulfilled desire. As scientists on the forefront of technology show that a world where humans and machines merge isn’t so far away, we have to ask ourselves will AI be the best, or the last thing we ever do?

Opening film at Hot Docs 2021

¨A fascinating foray deep into the realms of artificial intelligence, machine learning and biotechnology.¨ National Post  Chris Knight

¨The movie at once understands both the beauty and enormity of the possibilities.¨  Global News  Chris Jancelewicz

Margin of Error: AI, Polling and Elections

In the face of a century of traditional polling to predict public opinion, there is a shakeup afoot in the prediction game. Margin of Error: AI, Polling and Elections examines how a startup called Advanced Symbolics (ASI) uses artificial intelligence (AI) and public social-media data to forecast voter behaviour. But the promise of new technology also comes with questions about its accuracy, the threat to citizens’ privacy and our democracy itself.

Every one of us volunteers a huge amount of private data with virtually every Internet service we use, without reading or understanding the terms of service. This data can now be harvested by AI to accurately predict among many other things, how we will vote.

Even without surrendering personal information, the new AI algorithm Polly, developed by ASI, combs social media to build profiles of different demographics and determines their preferences.This method has already led to Polly’s success in predicting both the 2016 Trump victory and Brexit. With the 2019 Canadian federal election campaign as a real time back drop, Margin of Error puts Polly to the test revealing how an AI doesn’t just give a detailed picture of the publics voting intentions, but also how specific events can alter them.

But will knowing what our hopes and concerns are, give politicians the intel they need to respond to our needs, and lead to a “utopian” society, as ASI’s CEO Erin Kelly claims, or can this data be misused to mislead us – either by our own governments, or those of our adversaries? And should politicians even be responding to our desires, as expressed through social media?

The Internet of Everything

The Internet is invading all aspects of your life. No longer confined to your computer or your phone, the Internet is now in garbage cans, refrigerators, and the infrastructure of our cities. The future will either be a surveillance nightmare or an eco-utopia, the outcome determined by startups in Silicon Valley and Shenzhen.

The Internet of Everything captures our present moment, when both futures still seem possible. 

Brett Gaylor – a reformed techno-utopian who works in the tech industry – will be your guide.

His award winning documentaries Rip! A Remix Manifesto and Do Not Track have mapped the public’s relationship with the Internet; first fascination and obsession, then growing discomfort around the abuse of our private information, and now a sense of confusion and dread.  If the pace of change and lack of agency is confusing for a techie like Brett, everyone else is probably feeling bewildered, too.

But now, with the connecting of the physical world into the “Internet of Things”, the stakes have been raised – it’s no longer just the abstractions of cyberspace that are spinning out of control, but instead our homes, our bodies and our cities that are being transformed.

It’s a fast, funny and enlightening take on the bewildering change the Internet has wrought. The Internet of Everything embraces the “tech-lash” while reflecting on the big picture of a world where we are all connected.

 

A five webisode miniseries is also available comprising new, complementary stories

 

Episode 1 – Screen time

It’s easy to point our finger at kids for too much screen time — we’ve all laughed at memes of children on their phones at the museum, in the park, or on a camping trip… but as adults, are we any better?

At his home in Victoria, B.C., reformed techno-utopian Brett Gaylor, like most parents, is in a constant battle between his kids and screens. But what happens when the internet moves beyond the screen and into the world around us? With innumerable connected objects and spaces, depending on how you see it, we’re either living in a futuristic utopia or a nightmarish surveillance state. Every connected product comes with a trade-off — from the carbon footprint of smart assistants, to the complicated health insurance implications of wearables, or safety concerns around self-driving cars.

 

Episode 2 – Alexa, Save the Planet

Ever wondered how much energy is needed for Alexa to play that 90s dance hits playlist you love so much? More than you think.

There are already 66 million smart assistants in operation in the United States alone, and the number is growing daily. But what are we trading for the convenience of turning the lights on with our voice? Director Brett Gaylor approaches the question from a child’s point of view with his daughter Layla as they grapple to understand the enormous amount of energy and processing power involved in the machine learning powering Alexa. In parallel, Amazon’s corporate carbon footprint continues to grow, between the massive amount of non-renewable energy used to power their web services, or the ongoing pollution from transport emissions. In 2018, staff protests prompt shareholders to confront management, demanding a plan for climate change and a reduction of the company’s dependence on fossil fuels.

 

Episode 3 – In Good Hands

It’s easy to get sucked into the cute graphics of your health monitoring app, but the data captured by your FitBit or smart watch is being used for much more than simply encouraging you to up your step count.

Director Brett Gaylor travels to the outskirts of Paris where four young roommates try out fitness trackers for the first time, allowing him to monitor their health data. He finds out much more about their lives than they were expecting — what time they go to bed, when they go to the convenience store for a late night snack, and who’s sleeping with whom. This is creepy enough in and of itself, but it gets worse when the data falls into the hands of third parties. Health Insurance companies and corporate “wellness” programs are using health data obtained from fitness trackers to make decisions about how much your health insurance should cost, or whether or not they will insure you at all.

 

Episode 4 – Take the Wheel

The fantasy of stepping into a self-driving car and kicking back to read, nap or work until you arrive at your destination has universal appeal. But are the cars, or the cities in which we plan to let them loose, up to the task?

Director Brett Gaylor travels to northern France where the company TEQMO is testing self-driving cars in common accident scenarios, such as getting cut-off at an intersection. Let’s just say, they still have some testing to do. On the infrastructure front, hacker Cesar Cerato is on a mission to expose weaknesses in smart city traffic systems. Steps from the White House in Washington, he is surprised to discover that Washington’s traffic sensors aren’t encrypted. With pedestrians and drivers’ lives at risk, algorithmic driving where we can trust the data to make the right decision seems to be a long way off.

 

Episode 5 – See Something, Say Something

The Ring doorbell camera is positioned as a great way to monitor who or what’s at the door, whether you’re home or not. But preying on consumers’ fears of their Amazon packages getting stolen, or worse, is having far-reaching impacts on communities and policing practices around the world.

Director Brett Gaylor meets community activists in Skid Row, Los Angeles, where law enforcement has partnered with Amazon’s Ring, with some unintended consequences. On a map obtained from the police, the activists notice that “hot spots,” where police predict crimes will occur based on users’ “reports of suspicision,” are often found not in the heart of Skid Row, but at the outskirts, where gentrifying communities are clashing with their less fortunate, often non-white neighbours. By embracing these technologies, are the police protecting everyone, or just the gentrified?

 

 

100 Million Views

With dark humour and caustic wit, 100 Million Views uncovers the truth about a platform that promised transparency and democracy, but hides an exploitative, censored and unaccountable underbelly.

After years making Youtube videos without success, Itamar Rose sets out on a mission – to discover the secrets of what makes a video go viral. Along the way he meets with YouTube stars past and present, from early viral sensations such as ‘The Double Rainbow’ and ‘David After Dentist’ to the modern breed of Influencers who have fine tuned the art of audience building, algorithmic tampering and fan engagement.

Itamar’s mission pulls back the curtain on an industry where even the viral success stories begin life with views bought from ‘click farms’, experts explain to us how success still depends on marketing experience and partnerships beyond the reach of ordinary YouTubers, boot camps train the next generation of fame hungry children and even the most unassuming creators are drawn into cynical practices that reward ‘gaming the system’.

As we go deeper, YouTube stars fall by the wayside exhausted by the demands to constantly create and ‘feed the beast’ or disappear from the rankings, and Itamar himself is ejected from a YouTube event for asking difficult questions.

While Itamar’s journey takes him into the heart of the YouTube machine, difficult questions emerge about how exactly this platform that was supposed to give everyone a voice, has evolved.

Broken Harmony: China’s Dissidents

Broken Harmony: China’s Dissidents tells the story of Hua Ze, an ordinary Chinese citizen for whom a discovery of corruption led her into a hidden world of dissidents, citizen journalism, police harassment and kidnappings.

Once a mild mannered TV director, Hua Ze discovered that an old friend reporting on alleged corruption after the Sichuan earthquake had disappeared, along with any mention of him online. Following a trail of leads over the great internet fire wall of China, she discovers not just the fate of her friend, but the truth behind Sichuan’s fatal building code violations, a jaw-dropping array of human rights abuses across China and comes to the realization that the entire internet in China is a state controlled fiction.

Hua’s awakening takes her into a new world of dissidents, journalists and human rights lawyers. As she begins her own reporting, pressure from the government is swift, and her world is turned upside down. She is forced out of her job and placed under surveillance. One by one, her new friends are arrested or detained. Phones are tapped and secretive threats and warnings are made. But Hua cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption and she pays the price.

When ordinary Chinese citizens go to extraordinary lengths to fight human rights abuses, the risks are enormous, even life-threatening. Broken Harmony reveals Hua’s courageous acts and willingness to lose everything to fight for justice and the rule of law.

Body a la Carte

We live in a world where self-image has become an obsession, where we can no longer ignore the role that science and technology play in our never-ending quest for beauty and youth.

Through touching and meaningful stories, as well as the testimonies of plastic surgeons, and interviews with experts from related fields, Body à La Carte explores the increasingly popular and fascinating phenomenon of cosmetic procedures.

In a booming industry where plastic surgery is just another product to purchase, who knows when we will bite? Even the sceptics have mirrors.

91%: A Film About Guns in America

America’s 325 million residents own an estimated 347 million firearms. Not surprisingly, gun violence has become one of the most urgent public health issues facing Americans today.

In 91%, a cross-section of U.S. gun violence victims tell their heartbreaking stories of loss, pain, and a heroic search for hope in a nation stalled in a senseless gun control debate. Throughout these otherwise unrelated shootings, we find a common thread – the gunmen had all-too- easy access to the virtually untraceable, high-powered weaponry used in their attacks.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, a 2013 poll revealed that 91% of Americans support comprehensive background checks – a factor that could prevent thousands of similar gun violence tragedies nationwide. Yet, divisive political rhetoric and congressional gridlock continues to perpetuate a flawed system that hurts communities across the country.

Moving beyond the confusing gun control politics and avoiding any discussion about the often-unpredictable motivations of rampage killers, 91% shows that Americans almost unanimously support both 2nd amendment rights and common sense regulation. The film finds a shared language between citizens on both sides of the issue, encouraging them to move common sense policy forward by speaking up in a conversation typically dominated by firearm lobbyists and manufacturers.

By highlighting the impact of unregulated gun sales on schools, families, and communities across the country, 91% addresses the real problems and possible solutions to gun violence in America. It’s something we all agree about, we just don’t know it yet.

Rise of the Trolls

Has internet anonymity unleashed a ‘dark demon’ lurking in all of us? A film that reveals the hard truths surrounding anonymity, dark instincts and freedom on the internet.

Smartphones have put the internet into our pockets and billions of people around the world are now connected online. Our lives have improved greatly, but this “freedom” has also made us vulnerable to a new kind of predator – the internet troll. Hiding behind a veil of anonymity, trolls indulge their darkest impulses, attacking whoever they want with impunity. Once you become the target of a Troll, what starts as a minor annoyance can escalate into a living nightmare. But who are Trolls? And will the fight to stop them destroy our personal freedoms? In Rise of the Trolls we meet:

  • One of the internet’s most notorious trolls, who spends hours every week insulting and infuriating as many people as he can – just for the laughs
  • Britain’s most notorious Troll. A young woman who was jailed in England for sending six threatening tweets.
  • The very first recorded troll in internet history, who led a digital ‘invasion’ of a cat lover’s chat board.
  • A feminist blogger whose trolls are ramping up their tactics to harass her family.
  • A Canadian psychologist who published the first ever study of internet trolls, uncovering the four dark personality traits that drive trolls in their cruelty.
  • An accused Twitter troll whose precedent-setting court case will affect freedom of speech online worldwide.
  • A digital forensics expert who tracks down the most technically adept trolls.

Rise of the Trolls from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

A Revolution in Four Seasons

This seminal film tells the story of two women with opposing political views fighting for their different versions of a democratic future for Tunisia, the country that sparked the Arab Spring.

Over the course of Tunisia’s critical post-revolution years, we follow journalist Emna Ben Jemaa, who envisions a country governed by free speech and without the corruption of the former regime. In contrast, Jawhara Ettis of the Islamist party Ennahda works towards a Tunisia guided by Islamic principles.

On a public level, both women must navigate how females are treated in their society, while in their own homes they must make difficult choices to balance their public political roles with marriage and motherhood.

Both know the stakes are high and the ever-present threat of Islamic extremists means their fragile political process could break down at any moment and all they’ve worked for could be lost.

Through the intertwined stories of Emna and Jawhara, the unresolved tensions of the Arab spring are laid bare. A Revolution in Four Seasons gives both a comprehensive review of this crucial period as well as an intimate look at what these sometimes painful compromises mean for those living in a country struggling to define itself.

A Revolution in Four Seasons from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Timelines

Three girls die before their 21st birthdays. Kayleigh, 19, a victim in a fatal car accident; Amber, 16, bullied into taking her own life; and Jenna, 20, lost a fight with a rare disease. Soon after, their stories go viral and the world is given access to their lives and deaths.

Kayleigh wrote a bucket list that was shared the world over after her death, inspiring thousands of strangers to live her dreams. Amber seemed to have it all, her suicide sent shockwaves through her small town, questions are asked and a portrait of online bullying and torment emerge. Jenna is diagnosed with a disease so rare that doctors didn’t know how to treat it, turning to social media to find support and raise awareness, her campaign ‘Get Me to 21’ makes her a star, and saves lives but sadly not her own.

Timelines is a documentary about three young girls who lived and died on the internet, a story about grief in the digital age and how personas are shaped online. And for the families the question remains, how do you say goodbye, when death goes viral?

Timelines from Sideways Film on Vimeo.

Inside Her Sex

Inside Her Sex is a thought-provoking documentary that explores female sexuality and shame through the eyes and experiences of three women from different walks of life, each brave enough to chart her own course of sexual discovery.

While we live in a highly sexualized society, the messaging around sexuality, particularly female sexuality, is distorted and rife with shame. What we should look like, who we should want, what we should desire…in fact, who we should be, is dictated to us from screens and pages and people. As if there is one correct answer.

Stepping outside the common narrative is never straightforward. Exposing our deeper selves can be terrifying, even risky.

Candice, Elle, and Samantha have little in common. Not their age, not their hometowns, not their family circumstances. But they are all women. They are all sexual. And be it through circumstance or happenstance, they have each faced their sexual selves head on, and chosen to step outside the bounds of what society has dictated they should be, raising some interesting questions:

What happens if we are able to tap into our innate sexuality? To push beyond the bounds of societal structure and expectation? To stand up to powerful messaging and divert from the prescribed course?

Freedom From Choice

Life is about choice. What we eat, what we read, who we elect; every day we make choices that determine how we want to live.

But what if these choices are just an illusion?

In an era where regulations and red tape rule every industry, where lobby groups and big business wield more influence than ever before, our daily choices have become increasingly limited. And with all our options so deliberately handpicked, are we really making a choice at all?

Freedom From Choice examines the current state of life and personal choice today. Experts from many different fields offer a frank and startling look at the hidden limitations in our daily lives. Focusing on key areas such as food, medicine, finance, and media, Freedom From Choice provides viewers with a glimpse at the myriad of ways their lives are being dictated, and tells us who stands to gain.