The Cost Of Convenience (2024)

I Want to Be an Engineer

This film provides a lively introduction to the professional and personal lives of three female engineers-just a few of the growing number of women who were opting for "non-traditional" jobs in1983.

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin

A documentary about the development and spread of the virtual currency called Bitcoin.

The Social Dilemma

This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

The Cloud Under the Sea

Lurking under the sea is a global web of fibre optic telecommunication cables, the plumbing of the internet. It's how we talk, text and stream, connecting billions of people. These cables are also the frontline of a tech war.

This is CEEFAX

A look-behind-the-scenes at a television development that could be in everyone's home in just a few years' time. Reporter Angela Rippon tells the story of CEEFAX - the BBC's latest form of broadcasting. She visits Kingswood Warren where BBC Research Department 'boffins' developed it; and looks at some of its uses: News, weather, travel, sports results, farm prices and business information.

It's Yours: A Film on Hip-Hop and the Internet

By the dawn of the 21st century, hip-hop sales had reached an all-time high, but one thing has remained the same. The doors were still locked, and the music industry held the keys. Young artists began to self-market on the Internet, ultimately helping to collapse the music industry as we knew it. It’s Yours explores how it became possible to become a rap star through a Twitter account, YouTube site or Myspace page. It tells this story through the unique perspectives of numerous artists, producers, record industry insiders, and music and cultural critics.

Koyaanisqatsi

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.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Revolution OS

REVOLUTION OS tells the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement.

Inside Chernobyl's Mega Tomb

Documentary which follows the construction of a trailblazing 36,000-tonne steel structure to entomb the ruins of the nuclear power plant destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Global Spyware Scandal: Exposing Pegasus

FRONTLINE and Forbidden Films investigate Pegasus, a powerful spyware sold to governments around the world by the Israeli company NSO Group.

The Chiptune Story

The ChipTune Story focuses on 8-bit music and the C64 SID chip. Featuring interviews with games 8-bit music composers Rob Hubbard, Chris Huelsbeck, Ben Daglish, Mark Knight. We look at the history of ChipTune from 8-bit to 16-bit sampling.

Erasing David

David Bond lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world. He decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear, a decision that changes his life forever. Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy and the loss of it.

Nous sommes des champs de bataille

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Behind Your Radio Dial

Familiar radio voice Ben Grauer leads the viewer on a behind the scenes tour of the National Broadcasting Company studios -- both radio and television -- in Rockefeller Center and Hollywood. The original 25-minute film previewed by network execs and affiliates in the fall of 1948 was cut down to 20 minutes before its first broadcast, reportedly to excise high-profile stars and programs such as Amos 'n' Andy, Jack Benny, and Edgar Bergen that had since left NBC for other networks.

Nokia Mobile: We Were Connecting People

Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company called Nokia that manufactured the world’s best and most innovative mobile phones. Nokia’s annual budget was larger than that of the Government of Finland and their phones spread everywhere and changed the whole culture of communication. But then something changed. Film portrays the rise and fall of Nokia and the Finnish mobile phone industry. Nokia engineers, designers and managers tell their story about the creation, success and downfall of the Finnish mobile phone.

Big Brother: A World Under Surveillance

Under the pretext of fighting terrorism or crime, the major powers have embarked on a dangerous race for surveillance technologies. Facial recognition cameras, emotion detectors, citizen rating systems, autonomous drones… A security obsession that in some countries is giving rise to a new form of political regime: numerical totalitarianism. Orwell's nightmare.

Testerep

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

Final Warning

Host Grant Jeffrey discusses how technology and government activities are changing the way our information is handled. How is this shaping our lives?

A86 : Le Défi d'un tunnel à double étage

The Duplex A86 is a 10 kilometer underground highway buried more than 90 meters deep. This concrete tube, measuring the equivalent of more than 30 lying Eiffel towers, is the longest tunnel in France. The result of a succession of technical prowess born from the imagination of visionary engineers, the Duplex A86 allows you to cross all of western Paris in a few minutes.

Concorde : La Techno d'un avion hors norme

Plot unavailable

National Bird

Sonia Kennebeck takes on the controversial tactic of drone warfare, and demands accountability through the personal accounts—recollections, traumas, and responses—of three American military veterans whose lives have been shaken by the roles they played in this controversial method of attack.

MLK/FBI

Based on newly declassified files, the film explores the US government’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dans les coulisses du métro de Paris

Plot unavailable

The Feeling of Being Watched

Journalist Assia Boundaoui sets out to investigate long-brewing rumors that her quiet, predominantly Arab-American neighborhood was being monitored by the FBI.

General Magic

A tale of how the great vision and epic failure of General Magic, the "greatest dead company in Silicon Valley", changed the lives of billions.

The Cable That Changed the World

The first transatlantic communications cable, traversing the ocean floor from Valentia Island, County Kerry, to Newfoundland, Canada, 165 years ago was an 8 year endeavor that helped lay the foundation of the modern technology industry and explains the fragility of undersea cables today.

A Good American

A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.

Love Notes to Newton

Love Notes to Newton is a film about what a beloved (but short-lived) pen-based Personal Digital Assistant created by Apple Computer has meant for the people who used it, and the community who adore it.