Peep Culture (2011)

The Joy of AI

Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how we have created machines that can simulate, augment, and even outperform the human mind - and why we shouldn't let this spook us. He reveals the story of the pursuit of AI, the emergence of machine learning and the recent breakthroughs brought about by artificial neural networks. He shows how AI is not only changing our world but also challenging our very ideas of intelligence and consciousness. Along the way, we'll investigate spam filters, meet a cutting-edge chatbot, look at why a few altered pixels makes a computer think it's looking at a trombone rather than a dog and talk to Demis Hassabis, who heads DeepMind and whose stated mission is to 'solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else'. Stephen Hawking remarked 'AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. Or the worst'. Jim argues that AI is a potent new tool that should enhance our lives, not replace us.

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?

Terror Mandelão

Terror Mandelão addresses sound, technology, and the job market in the universe of baile funk in São Paulo's favelas. The film follows the journey of DJ K, one of the main DJs of Baile do Helipa, the street party of Heliópolis favela, and his friend Zero K, who got his first hit after 10 years as MC. Combining documentary, fictional elements, and visual experimentation, it portrays the ups and downs faced by young artists on the outskirts.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

With a magical new invention that promised to revolutionize blood testing, Elizabeth Holmes became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, heralded as the next Steve Jobs. Then, overnight, her 10-billion-dollar company dissolved. The rise and fall of Theranos is a window into the psychology of fraud.

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.

California Typewriter

A story about people whose lives are connected by typewriters. A meditation on creativity and technology featuring Tom Hanks, John Mayer, Sam Shepard, David McCullough and others.

1999 A.D.

A whimsical yet serious-minded look into the future sponsored by the appliance and radio manufacturer Philco-Ford. In the "1999 House of Tomorrow", each family member's activities are enabled by a central computer and revolve around products remarkably similar to those made by the sponsor. Power comes from a self-contained fuel cell which supports environmental controls, an automatic cooking system, and a computer-assisted "education room".

Autonomy

A cinematic exploration of the world of automated vehicles — from their technical history to the personal narratives of those affected by them to the many unanswered questions about how this technology will affect modern society. This documentary features interviews with industry pioneers and scenes with cutting-edge “AVs” in action around the world.

Human Nature

The biggest tech revolution of the 21st century isn’t digital, it’s biological. A breakthrough called CRISPR gives us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing disease, reshaping the biosphere, and designing our own children. This documentary is a provocative exploration of CRISPR’s far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting, and the genetic engineers who are testing its limits.

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.

For You

Flowers, Animals, Grass, Sky, Loved ones, Like, Follow, Comment. View the forgotten and ruined memories that have been tainted by earworms, bad comedy and the far-right pipeline. Gaze upon the endless landscape, or gaze upon the endless thirst traps.

Almost Human

The filmmaker Jeppe Rønde has invited 10 of the world's foremost researchers - and a robot! - to rethink our relationship with technology and its dilemmas from the outside. Philosophers, anthropologists, archaeologists and programmers show us through their thought experiments that our relationship with technology is just as much about our relationship with ourselves.

More Than Robots

More Than Robots follows four international teams of teenagers as they prepare for the 2020 FIRST Robotics Competition. Get to know competitors from Los Angeles, Mexico City and Chiba, Japan as they work towards the ultimate goal of taking their unique designs all the way to the highly competitive global championships. Along the way they must overcome challenges such as having limited resources or putting everything on hold because of the COVID pandemic. The kids persevere and learn that there is a lot more to the competition than just robots.

Algorithmes - vers un monde manipulé

By observing the technological developments of artificial intelligence in several countries, this film sheds light on the advantages and limits of algorithms and their repercussions on the lives of citizens. Whether at the level of the State, the police, universities, or companies, artificial intelligences should be used as a tool, but very often become a substitute for the work of the individual. There are many abuses: manipulations, addictions, or centralization of power. What can governments and States do to best regulate these technological advances?

DSKNECTD

As clichés go, in 1999 the World as we knew it was about to change - and we'd been expecting it. Since childhood we'd been promised that the 21st century would bring us dramatic new technologies like flying cars and Utopian cities. Instead it bought us the smart-phone, social media, and virtual societies. And as it turns out these technologies began to transform society almost as dramatically as the moon colonies we'd been expecting. Now over a decade into the revolution, 'DSKNECTD' explores how digital communication technology is profoundly changing the way we interact and experience each other - for the good and for the bad.

The Cost Of Convenience

The Cost Of Convenience examines how internet platforms are impacting our mental health, restructuring our communities, threatening our democracy, and violating our human rights.

Petrol - Carburant - Kraftstoff

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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.

Cyborgs: Human Machines

Over the past few years, technology has improved our lives in so many ways. Now, some people, called trans-humanists, are taking the next logical step - they are fusing their bodies with digital implants to increase their abilities and expand their senses - they are becoming, in effect, real life cyborgs. How is life going to change for us all if some people have supernatural powers?

Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web

The larger-than-life story of Kim Dotcom, the 'most wanted man online', is extraordinary enough, but the battle between Dotcom and the US Government and entertainment industry—being fought in New Zealand—is one that goes to the heart of ownership, privacy and piracy in the digital age.

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.

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.

Romantic Chorus

A feature animated-documentary that focuses on sex and romantic connections featuring 21 diverse interviews with people from a wide range of genders, cultural backgrounds, abilities, and sexual orientations as they discuss Sex, Monogamy, Fear and Technology. The film is also collaboration of our production staff and 17 animators from 10 countries.

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.

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin

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

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.

Smash His Camera

A film centering on the life and work of Ron Galella that examines the nature and effect of paparazzi.

Seconds for Survival

Cold War film illustrating the defense capacity of America's telephone network, highlighting AT&T's role in the design and construction of the nation's integrated defense structure, including the Distant Early Warning Line and the North American Air Defense Command. In the dramatic ending, rockets and missiles are fired at hostile forces in a readiness exercise and score a direct hit.

Concorde : La Techno d'un avion hors norme

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The Nation at Your Fingertips

Promotional film introducing self-service long-distance dialing using a prototype service in Englewood, New Jersey. Demonstrates how direct dial and the new area code system enable callers to make contact instantly without operator assistance.

e-Life

Computers, smart phones, and tablets are now a part of our daily lives. They have revolutionised the way we work, the way we communicate and the way we view the world. But what happens to our old phone when we upgrade? Where does our broken computer go after we throw it out? 'e-Life' explores what happens to our electrical goods when we throw them away and exposes some unpleasant (and perhaps unknown) truths about the detrimental affects e-waste has on people's health, the environment and the economy. From consumers in the UK to the recyclers in the dumps of Ghana, the documentary will follow the journey of our e-waste. We will examine current manufacturing and disposal processes and also assess the burden the boom in electronic goods is placing on global resources. 'e-Life' will be an objective portrayal of the problem of e-waste that documents the issue through carefully crafted cinematography.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

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

Cyborgs Among Us

In a few years, technology will merge with our bodies in ways that today seem unimaginable, and will redefine the limits of what is a human being. There are already people who, driven by the desire to experiment, have crossed the biological limits by introducing electronic devices that provide them with capabilities that go beyond what is "normal." They are the first hybrids, and they face the reaction of society, which goes from malignancy to enthusiasm. Today they are only a small minority, and many people consider them as disrupted experimenters, but in the near future we may recognize them as pioneers.

Apple: The Trillion Dollar Betrayal

Apple, is the most valuable company in the world. It has revolutionized the modern age & reshaped our relationships with each other. But it faces a major backlash due to controversies. From anti-competitive practices, using App store to copy the best ideas, trapping consumers in the Apple ‘ecosystem’, tax avoidance & sweatshop practices, this film probes into allegations against the tech giant.

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.

Surviving Progress

Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, “A Short History Of Progress” inspired “Surviving Progress”, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps”—alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate needs, but ransom the future. As pressure on the world’s resources accelerates and financial elites bankrupt nations, can our globally-entwined civilization escape a final, catastrophic progress trap? With potent images and illuminating insights from thinkers who have probed our genes, our brains, and our social behaviour, this requiem to progress-as-usual also poses a challenge: to prove that making apes smarter isn’t an evolutionary dead-end.

Nothing to Hide

NOTHING TO HIDE is an independent documentary dealing with surveillance and its acceptance by the general public through the "I have nothing to hide" argument. The documentary was produced and directed by a pair of Berlin-based journalists, Mihaela Gladovic and Marc Meillassoux. It was crowdfunded by over 400 backers. NOTHING TO HIDE questions the growing, puzzling and passive public acceptance of massive corporate and governmental incursions into individual and group privacy and rights. After the emotion initially triggered by the Snowden revelations, it seems that the general public has finally accepted to live in a monitored digital world.

Something Ventured

Apple. Intel. Genentech. Atari. Google. Cisco. Stratospheric successes with high stakes all around. Behind some of the world's most revolutionary companies are a handful of men who (through timing, foresight, a keen ability to size up other people, and a lot of luck) saw opportunity where others did not: these are the original venture capitalists. All were backing and building companies before the term 'venture capital' had been coined: companies that led to the birth of biotechnology and the spectacular growth in microprocessors, personal computers and the web. SOMETHING VENTURED uncovers the ups and downs of the building of some of the greatest companies of the twentieth century, and the hidden dramas behind some of the most famous names in business.