A very human tech doc, uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo. From delivering food and driving ride shares to tagging images for AI, millions of people around the world are finding work task by task online. The gig economy is worth over 5 trillion USD globally, and growing. And yet the stories of the workers behind this tech revolution have gone largely neglected. Who are the people in this shadow workforce? It brings their stories into the light. Lured by the promise of flexible work hours, independence, and control over time and money, workers from around the world have found a very different reality. Work conditions are often dangerous, pay often changes without notice, and workers can effectively be fired through deactivation or a bad rating. Through an engaging global cast of characters, it reveals how the magic of technology we are being sold might not be magic at all.
The Flickering Flame (1996)
Documentary following dockers of Liverpool sacked in a labour dispute and their supporters’ group, Women of the Waterfront, as they receive support from around the world and seek solidarity at the TUC conference.
Machine of Human Dreams (2016)
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.
We Speak Music (2019)
There Is Always Something New Happening. So where is our limit? Our artform beatboxing has given so much to the present and has so much more to give in the future. Working in collaboration with Nokia Bell Labs the legendary beatboxer and member of the beatbox community, Reeps One, took a journey of discovery to understand more about the entire art form and how it inspires communities, scientists and engineers.
The Shock Doctrine (2007)
Drawing surprising connections between market methods and CIA torture techniques developed in the 1950s, the film explores how well-known events of the recent past have been theaters for the shock doctrine, from Pinochet's coup in Chile, to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, to the war in Iraq today.
The Corporation (2003)
Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
The Island of Shadows (2016)
The workers talk about the pleasure of starting work in a shipyard, the pride of making the vessel, and the recognition of workers and the high spirit of their novel struggle. There was solidarity everywhere, even in each other's mind. But there is no more energy in Hanjin Shipyard. The workers have been laid-off and the strike shows no sign of stopping. A 34 year-old worker committed suicide as well. It's the fourth who has become a martyr for the cause. Why have the laborers who worked at Hanjin shipyard separated like this? They are starting to ask themselves why they decided to hate each other.
Concerning Violence (2014)
Concerning Violence is based on newly discovered, powerful archival material documenting the most daring moments in the struggle for liberation in the Third World, accompanied by classic text from The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon.
Master of the Universe (2013)
He was one of Germany's leading investment experts with an income of several million Euros per day. Now, he sits on one of the upper floors of an empty bank building in the middle of Frankfurt, overlooking a skyline of glass and steel. And talks. In an extended mix of a monologue and an in-depth interview, which is as frightening as it is fascinating, he shares his inside knowledge from a megalomaniac parallel world where illusions are the market's hardest currency. Marc Bauder's 'Master of the Universe' is based on meticulous research and provides us with geniune insight into the notoriously secretive and self-protective 'universe' of which our nameless protagonist experiences himself a master. Where other films on the financial meltdown have focused on the epic nature of larger-than-life business, Bauder probes the mentality that made it possible in the first place. A tense drama where psychology meets finance - two things that are more closely linked than you would like to believe.
Shellmound (2004)
“Shellmound” is the story of how one location was transformed from a sacred center of pre-historic cultures to a commercial mecca for modern people. What began as a Native American burial ground three thousand years ago, was transformed first into an amusement park, and later an industrial age paint factory. Now, the tainted ancient soil sits beneath the glittering lights of Banana Republic, Victoria’s Secret, and the AMC movie theaters. “Shellmound” examines the decisions made during the recent toxic cleanup, excavation, and construction of the Bay Street mall through the eyes of the city of Emeryville, the developer, the archaeologists, and the native Californians who worked on the site.
Der unaufhaltsame aufstieg von Amazon (2018)
Amazon has become one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and only the second company ever to be valued over US$1 trillion. This film investigates its strategies, inner workings and ideologies and asks whether the services that we have become so dependent on could eventually cost us our hard won freedoms, and how one of the world’s most trusted brands has influenced our individual behaviour, labour force and culture.
Sex and Buttered Popcorn (1989)
Actor Ned Beatty hosts a look at the genre known as "exploitation" films. Interviews with some of the producers and directors of these films are shown, along with scenes from and trailers for some of these films.
512X512 (2023)
The search for René Descartes’ daughter Francine leads an internet user into the depths of an AI’s mental space. This intelligence generates limitless images from words given by humans, until it starts working by itself. An alternative, fleshless new world, containing all the world's memory, emerges.
Mated (1952)
Vital true sex facts and scenes formerly restricted to medical books, this film was billed as an illustrated lecture on film.
American Factory (2019)
In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a new factory in the husk of an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand blue-collar Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.
For Twenty Cents A Day (1979)
A film documenting work shortages during the Depression of the 1930s and the attempts to deal with the unemployed, in particular young men. The film discusses the establishment of relief camps and projects, where men were paid twenty cents per day; the founding of organizations such as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Workers' Unity League, and Relief Camp Workers' Union; general unionization and protest of the unemployed, including the On To Ottawa Trek, Regina Riot, sit-in strike from May to June 1938 at the Vancouver Main Post Office, Vancouver Art Gallery and Hotel Georgia, and the resulting Bloody Sunday of June 19.
Silicon Valley Goes to Space (2013)
Discover how the big, bold ideas of Silicon Valley are helping launch a new era of private space exploration in this half-hour KQED Science documentary. From space tourism to mining the moon to companies ferrying NASA astronauts into space, a new wave of commercialization is shaking up the $300-billion global space industry. Meet a new generation of entrepreneurs, sprung from the high-tech culture of Silicon Valley, who are venturing into the new "wild west" of space exploration in search of their space gold. But are there new risks when space is no longer the exclusive domain of big governments?
AI Generated These I Had No Hands (2023)
Exploring the diaspora and how we exist in the Western landscape, we are on this land that has a colonial agenda. At the beginning of the video, I put traditional paintings depicting the “sublime”- which come from the colonist lens, and then I added AI-generated images to re-catalog my experience living in this country. The keywords I put into the system to AI-generate images are words that are relevant to how I grew up, including pop-culture references, key landscapes from where I grew up, and critical political words- the Taiwanese flag in itself is a highly politicized word.
The Corporate Coup D'État (2018)
A democracy should protect its most vulnerable citizens, but increasingly the United States is failing to do so. This investigation blends the insights of experts with the experiences of citizens of the Rust Belt in the Midwest where the steel industry once flourished, but where closures and outsourcing have left urban areas desolate. It is here where Donald Trump finds some of his most fervent supporters.