A Counter-History of the Internet (2013)

A Man Escaped

A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.

Take This Waltz

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

The Endless Summer

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Interstellar

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

BlacKkKlansman

Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.

Me Before You

A small town girl is caught between dead-end jobs. A high-profile, successful man becomes wheelchair bound following an accident. The man decides his life is not worth living until the girl is hired for six months to be his new caretaker. Worlds apart and trapped together by circumstance, the two get off to a rocky start. But the girl becomes determined to prove to the man that life is worth living and as they embark on a series of adventures together, each finds their world changing in ways neither of them could begin to imagine.

Murder on the Orient Express

Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.

Avatar

In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.

Get Out

Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

The Revenant

In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Thirty years after defeating the Galactic Empire, Han Solo and his allies face a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren and his army of Stormtroopers.

Green Book

Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.

Inside Llewyn Davis

In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future.

Marriage Story

A stage director and an actress struggle through a grueling, coast-to-coast divorce that pushes them to their personal extremes.

The Shawshank Redemption

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

In 1926, Newt Scamander arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States of America with a magically expanded briefcase, which houses a number of dangerous creatures and their habitats. When the creatures escape from the briefcase, it sends the American wizarding authorities after Newt, and threatens to strain even further the state of magical and non-magical relations.

Fight Club

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.

The Truman Show

Every second of every day, from the moment he was born, for the last thirty years, Truman Burbank has been the unwitting star of the longest running, most popular documentary-soap opera in history. The picture-perfect town of Seahaven that he calls home is actually a gigantic soundstage. Truman's friends and family - everyone he meets, in fact - are actors. He lives every moment under the unblinking gaze of thousands of hidden TV cameras.

Wild Tales

Injustice and the demands of the world can cause stress for many people. Some of them, however, explode. This includes a waitress serving a grouchy loan shark, an altercation between two motorists, an ill-fated wedding reception, and a wealthy businessman who tries to buy his family out of trouble.

The Godfather

Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.

Dirty Dancing

Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.

The Shining

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.

The Omen

Immediately after their miscarriage, the US diplomat Robert Thorn adopts the newborn Damien without the knowledge of his wife. Yet what he doesn’t know is that their new son is the son of the devil.

Venom

Investigative journalist Eddie Brock attempts a comeback following a scandal, but accidentally becomes the host of Venom, a violent, super powerful alien symbiote. Soon, he must rely on his newfound powers to protect the world from a shadowy organization looking for a symbiote of their own.

Gangs of New York

In 1863, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points of America to seek vengeance against the psychotic gangland kingpin, Bill the Butcher, who murdered his father years earlier. With an eager pickpocket by his side and a whole new army, Vallon fights his way to seek vengeance on the Butcher and restore peace in the area.

The Blind Side

The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

Train to Busan

When a zombie virus pushes Korea into a state of emergency, those trapped on an express train to Busan must fight for their own survival.

Ghost

After a young man is murdered, his spirit stays behind to warn his lover of impending danger, with the help of a reluctant psychic.

Big Fish

Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel tells of a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars and his friendship with a young employee who becomes his trusted protégé. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting, the battle for an enormous family fortune and the slow and then sudden upheavals that transformed Europe during the first half of the 20th century.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

It

In a small town in Maine, seven children known as The Losers Club come face to face with life problems, bullies and a monster that takes the shape of a clown called Pennywise.

Bringing Up Baby

David Huxley is waiting to get a bone he needs for his museum collection. Through a series of strange circumstances, he meets Susan Vance, and the duo have a series of misadventures which include a leopard called Baby.

Friday the 13th

A group of young adults visit a boarded up campsite named Crystal Lake where they soon encounter the mysterious Jason Voorhees and his deadly intentions.

Arrival

Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.

Blade Runner

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

Pride & Prejudice

A story of love and life among the landed English gentry during the Georgian era. Mr. Bennet is a gentleman living in Hertfordshire with his overbearing wife and five daughters, but if he dies their house will be inherited by a distant cousin whom they have never met, so the family's future happiness and security is dependent on the daughters making good marriages.

One Day

A romantic comedy centered on Dexter and Emma, who first meet during their graduation in 1988 and proceed to keep in touch regularly. The film follows what they do on July 15 annually, usually doing something together.

Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror

Anonymous and exploitative, a network of online chat rooms ran rampant with sex crimes. The hunt to take down its operators required guts and tenacity.

Freedom Downtime

A feature-length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.

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.

We Live in Public

In 1999, Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris recruits dozens of young men and women who agree to live in underground apartments for weeks at a time while their every movement is broadcast online. Soon, Harris and his girlfriend embark on their own subterranean adventure, with cameras streaming live footage of their meals, arguments, bedroom activities, and bathroom habits. This documentary explores the role of technology in our lives, as it charts the fragile nature of dot-com economy.

Cyberbunker: The Criminal Underworld

This documentary reveals how a group of hackers powered the darkest corners of the internet from a Cold War-era bunker in a quiet German tourist town.

Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy

This subversive documentary unpacks the tricks brands use to keep their customers consuming — and the real impact they have on our lives and the world.

How To Go Viral

Richard Clay, art historian and expert on semiotics and iconoclasm and the interplay between new technology and shifts in meaning, compares and contrasts cultural symbols from across the centuries, unpicking iconic images, music, and other cultural outputs to explain where ‘stickiness’ comes from.

The Crazy Che

The incredible story of Bill Gaede, an Argentinian engineer, programmer… and Cold War spy.

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.

Winnebago Man

Jack Rebney is the most famous man you've never heard of - after cursing his way through a Winnebago sales video, Rebney's outrageously funny outtakes became an underground sensation and made him an internet superstar. Filmmaker Ben Steinbauer journeys to the top of a mountain to find the recluse who unwittingly became the "Winnebago Man".

Free Child

From leaving Egypt 10 years ago, to almost dying a month ago in a car accident. This film is about the journey in between and the massive role the internet played in the life of prominent Youtuber and Yes Theory co-founder Ammar Kandil.

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

Takes us inside the world of Anonymous, the radical "hacktivist" collective that has redefined civil disobedience for the digital age. The film explores early hacktivist groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater, then moves to Anonymous' raucous beginnings on the website 4chan. Through interviews with current members, people recently returned from prison or facing trial, writers, academics, activists and major players in various "raids," the documentary traces Anonymous’ evolution from merry pranksters to a full-blown movement with a global reach, the most transformative civil disobedience of our time.

Defeating the Hackers

Exploring the murky and fast-paced world of the hackers out to steal money and identities and wreak havoc with people's online lives, and the scientists who are joining forces to help defeat them.

My Sextortion Diary

Pati, a young film producer, is fighting to carve out a professional career in the film industry. It is May 2019 when her laptop is stolen during a business trip in Madrid. Two months after, an anonymous Hacker accesses all the stored data in the stolen device and finds three very private photos of Pati. He threatens that if he doesn’t receive $2,400 he will mass-mail the pictures to all her work contacts in order to ruin her professional reputation. The shame, anger and distress caused by the ineffectiveness of the legal forces lead Pati to set out on her own investigation to stop the Hacker and regain control and power over her privacy.

Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains & the Future of the Internet

Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet takes a deep dive into the crypto ecosystem and blockchain technology to discover the good, the bad and the ugly of this controversial industry, its major narratives, conflicts and the major players behind it. Can blockchain technology be used to create a new, fairer, decentralised and uncensored web3.0 where we can control our data and protect our online identities? Or will the potential be squandered as mega corporations once again compete for dominance in this new field. With his unrivalled and exclusive access, award-winning filmmaker Torsten Hoffman (Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It) takes us on a journey into the heart of this brave new world.

Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It

A documentary exploring how money and the trading of value has evolved, culminating in Bitcoin.

The Cleaners

A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.

Deep Web

Deep Web gives the inside story of one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century -- the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the 30-year-old entrepreneur convicted of being 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. As the only film with exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, Deep Web explores how the brightest minds and thought leaders behind the Deep Web and Bitcoin are now caught in the crosshairs of the battle for control of a future inextricably linked to technology, with our digital rights hanging in the balance.

Out

Through a montage of compelling videos posted on the Internet by young gays, bis, lesbians or transsexuals, «Out» makes us experience from within the groundbreaking moment of their coming out – after which their intimate and social life shall be forever changed.

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.

Downloaded

A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.

Beware the Slenderman

In this horrifyingly modern fairytale lurks an online Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. The entrance to the internet quickly leads to its darkest basement. How responsible are our children for what they find there?

Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World

A first-hand look into the revolutionary rise of the “citizen investigative journalist” collective known as Bellingcat. Comprised of various distinct personalities from around the globe, Bellingcat is an online association of talented and dedicated truth-seekers utilizing advanced digital research techniques to upend the world of journalism. De facto leader Eliot and his fellow researchers give us exclusive access into their tight-knit world as they demonstrate the unlimited power of open source investigation. In cases ranging from the MH17 disaster to the hidden crimes of the Syrian regime, the group’s power and growing global influence is examined and explored.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World

Werner Herzog's exploration of the Internet and the connected world.

Putin's Bears - The Most Dangerous Hackers in the World

They call themselves Fancy Bear, Cozy Bear or Voodoo Bear. Elite units of the Russian secret services are hidden behind these code names. They are among the most dangerous hackers in the world. The bears were already in the computer of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015, interfered in the US election campaign in 2016 and are currently influencing the war in Ukraine. The makers of the successful YouTube channel “Simplicissimus” in co-production with funk and SWR are back and show the destructive potential of state hacking with this documentary. With the help of leading German hackers, cyberspace experts and a lot of humor, they delicately demystify the Russian bears: Who are the people behind them? How do they operate? And what makes them so incredibly dangerous?

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.

Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows

Ghyslain Raza, better known as the “Star Wars Kid,” breaks his silence to reflect on our hunger for content and the right to be forgotten in the digital age.

Hackers: Outlaws and Angels

This program reveals the daily battle between the Internet’s outlaws and the hackers who oppose them by warding off system attacks, training IT professionals and police officers, and watching cyberspace for signs of imminent infowar. Through interviews with frontline personnel from the Department of Defense, NYPD’s computer crime squad, private detective firm Kroll Associates, X-Force Threat Analysis Service, and several notorious crackers, the program provides penetrating insights into the millions of hack attacks that occur annually in the U.S.—including one that affected the phone bills of millions and another that left confidential details of the B-1 stealth bomber in the hands of teenagers. The liabilities of wireless networks, the Code Red worm, and online movie piracy are also discussed. A Discovery Channel Production. (51 minutes)

Tracking Russian Hackers

Amid the growing threat of cyberattacks from Russian hackers, this film dives into their origins, motives, and the dangers they pose to their targets.

Findings N 100

In March 2016, a 4 a.m. broadcast on Adult Swim made a big impact on the channel's audience. This broadcast, entitled “this house has people in it”, will subsequently create a huge mystery on the internet and a treasure hunt rarely equaled. Follow me as I attempt to explain this strange, funny and disturbing work... But can it really be explained?

All Is One. Except 0

In 1981, Wau Holland and other hackers established the Hamburg based Chaos Computer Club (CCC). The idiosyncratic freethinkers were inspired by Californian technology visionaries and committed themselves to hacker ethics. All information must be free. Use public data, protect private data. But not everyone followed the rules. Computer technology was still in its infancy and the emerging Internet became a projection screen for social utopias. What has become of them? The story of the German hackers, told by the protagonists themselves in a montage of found video and audio material.

Nejsledovanější

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People's Republic of Desire

In China’s popular live-streaming showrooms, three millennials – a karaoke singer, a migrant worker and a rags-to-riches comedian – seek fame, fortune and human connection, ultimately finding the same promises and perils online as in their real lives.

You're Reminded As You Fall Asleep

As the nights go by, a young filmmaker uses his video camera to express his thoughts, dreams, and inner turmoil to an online friend.

Finding Satoshi

With only a photograph and a name, a group of passionate puzzle players have been trying without success to answer the question: "Who is this man?" Finding Satoshi is a playful documentary that finally solves the 14 year mystery.

Lord of the Toys

Max "Adlersson" Herzberg, 20 years of age, from Dresden decided not to spend his life working. Ever since, he reviews knives and other products, unboxes limited fan editions of mainly gangsta rap albums, gives talks about himself, drinks, swears and bawls in town, humiliates others, cracks borderline jokes and crosses every boundary he sees - Max is a YouTube creator and makes a decent living off of it. Most of Max's friends have their own channels on YouTube, some even quite successfully. Max and his gang are dubious role models but without a doubt, they are celebrities of their generation having more than 300.000 active fans. Is Max a violence-glorifying influencer with far-right tendencies or a usual adolescent, just trying to find himself and happens to be born into a time where the lines between private life and public self-display are blurring? He might be both, possibly without being overly aware of it.

Russia's Cyber Army

For years now, the Kremlin has been systematically trying to use well-trained hackers for its own benefit. In exchange for freedom and protection, they do the dirty work of the state, interfering in other countries’ elections and penetrating government networks. Just how dangerous is Russia’s cyber army?

David Baddiel Social Media, Anger and Us

This is a thoughtful and mature documentary that considers whether online rage has real-world consequences. Baddiel has experienced antisemitic abuse on Twitter, where he has 785,000 followers. He has had brushes with what is called “cancel culture” and “callout culture”, when users have criticised his use of blackface on TV in the 1990s, for which he has apologised. He is also a self-confessed social media addict – by which he really means Twitter, his primary focus here – and self-aware enough to admit that while he feels he needs it to promote his work, he also understands that he has a psychological need for an audience, and by extension, for audience approval.

All Creatures Welcome

All Creatures Welcome explores the world of hackers and nerds at the events of the Chaos Computer Club, Europe's largest hacker association. The film dispels common clichés and draws a utopian picture of a possible society in the digital age.

Drug Porn

An experimental documentary about the spectacle of substance abuse on social media. More than 45 hours of footage, hundreds of pages of blog posts and interviews were distilled and remixed using glitch and cut-up techniques to insure anonymity, transcend the shock factor and unfold this complex, singular and stratified use of social media.

Code 2600

CODE 2600 documents the rise of the Information Technology Age as told through the events and people who helped build and manipulate it.

Vitalik: An Ethereum Story

Chronicles tech visionary Vitalik Buterin and Ethereum's community of builders as they fight for an open internet accessible to all.

Love Factory: The Price of Being a Social Media Star

Livestreaming your life to a devoted audience is big business. What happens when the cameras are off?

Foreveryone.net

Foreveryone.net connects the future of the web with the little-known story of its birth. In 1989, 33-year-old computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web and his visionary decision to make it a free and accessible resource sparked a global revolution in communication. Tim has declared internet access a human right and has called for an “online Magna Carta” to protect privacy and free speech, extend connectivity to populations without access and maintain “One Web” for all. Tim’s dramatic story poses the question: will we fight for the web we want or let it be taken away?

HIPERTEXTO

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The Choice - The Risks of Web Democracy

Italy’s biggest political party, the Five Star Movement, promotes direct democracy through internet voting. Five Star Movement uses a digital platform named Rousseau, that allows Movement’s members to vote online and express their opinion on various issues. But who governs this data?

Internet, alienation or emancipation?

A documentary in 10 chapters, built around interviews addressing the complex topic of personal data: how we use the web, the excesses, hopes brought by GDPR, local solutions, etc. The documentary is available on Peertube instances: https://peertube.fr/videos/watch/ea2d5153-4704-4a6e-8a13-d09a411c9760