We Live in Public

Colour, HD CAM
USA, 2009, 90 min
EP – European premiere
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

Ambitious young Josh Harris came to New York City in 1984 with the desire to make his mark on the world of modern technology. Nine years later he founded Pseudo.com, an interactive Internet TV site. Called the "Warhol of the Web,” the multimillionaire propagator of communications networks enjoyed his quickly acquired popularity, but he didn’t just rest on his laurels. At the end of the millennium he introduced the groundbreaking project Quiet: We Live in Public. Using an extensive underground space, he created a society with its own rules, inviting hundreds of fans to submit their lives to his all-pervasive cameras for 30 days. Then he subjected his own private life to this Orwellian human terrarium. Editing down 5,000 hours of material shot over a period of ten years, Ondi Timoner has created a fascinating portrait of a visionary who became a warning case against Internet evolution.

About the director

Ondi Timoner graduated from Yale University and founded Interloper Films in 1994. She is the only filmmaker to twice win Sundance’s Grand Jury Award. The first time was for the cult film DiG! (2004), a portrait of the founders of two once-promising rock bands, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. Her short film Recycle (2004) was shown to accolades at Sundance and Cannes. Money she received for shooting commercials helped her finance another feature-length film, Join Us (2007), a revealing look inside the twisted psychology of a Christian cult in South Carolina. After a five-year break, she returned in January with We Live in Public to defend her Grand Jury Prize at the world’s most famous independent film festival.