We Live In Public
(ON DEMAND)
DIRECTED BY - Ondi Timoner
Ten years in the making and culled from 5000 hours of footage, We Live In Public reveals the effect the web is having on our society, as seen through the eyes of "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of", artist, futurist, and visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director Ondi Timoner (Dig! - which also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004 - making Timoner the only director to win that prestigious award twice) documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.
GENRES - biography, documentary, experimental, fine & media arts
Film Info
RUNTIME - 90 minutes
RATING - Not Rated
YEAR - 2009
FORMAT - DVD Region 1
SPECIAL FEATURES (DVD Only) -
Commentary with Director Ondi Timoner, Commentary with Josh Harris, Inside the Bunker: The Guns, Inside the Bunker: The Pods, Making of: with Ondi Timoner, Behind the Scenes: Sundance 09, Josh Watches the Film for the 1st Time (Highlights), Theatrical Trailer
Related Links:
Official Website
Director
Producer
Producer
Writer
Editor
Editor
Cinematographer
Cinematographer
FESTIVALS
- Boston Film Festival 2009 (Boston, United States)
- Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2009 (Durham, United States)
- Hot Docs: Canadian International Documentary Festival 2009 (Toronto, Canada)
- Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2009 (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic)
- Los Angeles Film Festival 2009 (Los Angeles, United States)
- Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival 2009 (Melbourne, Australia)
- Nashville Film Festival 2009 (Nashville, United States)
- New Directors/New Films 2009 (New York City, United States)
- Newport International Film Festival 2009 (Newport, United States)
- Sarasota Film Festival 2009 (Sarasota, United States)
Awards
- Grand Jury Prize (Winner)
2009 Sundance Film Festival (Park City, United States) - Permanent Collection (Winner)
2009 Museum of Modern Art Documentary Fortnight (New York, NY) - Special Jury Prize (Winner)
2009 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) - Student Jury Prize (Winner)
2009 Newport International Film Festival (Newport, United States)
Customer Reviews
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We All Live in Public
written by dmt5 on Jun 2nd, 2010read all my reviews
this review is from: We Live In Public (DVD)
Try to imagine your daily existence under constant surveillance. Now imagine that this also applied to everyone else in the world. Your life is viewable to anyone with an Internet connection, while at the same time you may peer into countless numbers of lives. What would happen to the laws of society, or even to one's own moral code, if the concept of privacy was simply to vanish? We Live in Public both answers these questions and poses new ones as to where exactly our society is headed.
The film mainly serves as a biopic of the life and times of Josh Harris, described by the film as "the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.†Indeed, Harris does seem a visionary at times; his social experiment “Quiet†and its smaller-scale offshoot “We Live in Public†seem like little if not outright prototypes of reality television. The documentation of the former is where the film truly shines, with director Ondi Timoner providing a harrowing and occasionally terrifying glimpse into the basis of societal breakdown. The detachment from any privacy or intimacy (and at times from any humanity) that is shown by the individuals involved is striking in the way it is bluntly depicted; it also proves to be quite chilling when one realizes that perhaps modern-day society wouldn't be too far off from what's shown here, if given unlimited access to alcohol, women, and other people's lives.
The latter experiment, and indeed the latter half of the film, explores Harris' emotional detachment and gradual withdrawal from society at large. While not as striking as the “Quiet†section on a visceral level, it resonates deeply on an emotional one. Harris fancied himself a veritable puppet-master during “Quiet;†“We Live in Public†and its aftermath, on the other hand, shows him as a remarkably lonely individual. Is the general public truly that dissimilar? Any time we flip on “Jersey Shore†or “The Real World,†are we not feverishly peering into the lives of others simply in order to fill some void that exists within our own?
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