Sieged: The Press Vs Denialism

As Brazil’s death toll surpasses a quarter of a million, President Jair Bolsonaro tells Brazilians to “stop whining.” Leading his country through a global pandemic with denialism, propaganda and unchecked bravado, he has brought his country to the edge of disaster.

This immersive documentary rolls back the clock to when the pandemic first started, telling the story of the frontline journalists who were desperate to warn the country of an impending public health disaster. Sieged holds up an uncanny mirror to the events in the US and the rest of the world, as Brazilians see their health ministers fired and undermined, racially motived killings proliferate, and journalists disempowered and blamed every step of the way with allegations of reporting fake news. Elsewhere we see hospitals at breaking point and other essential service workers pushed to the edge, as families lose their loved ones in droves.

This documentary takes viewers behind the scenes, into the newsrooms, behind the cameras and into the press scrums for a deeper view of the political turmoil and corruption brought to light as COVID-19 hit Brazil.

Artificial Immortality

If you were able to create an immortal version of yourself, would you? Until this decade, that question was the stuff of science fiction, but now experts in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics suggest it will indeed be possible.

This cinematic documentary explores the latest technological advancements in AI, robotics and biotech, and poses the question: what is the essence of the human mind, and can this be replicated? Or even more unsettling, could we one day meet cloned versions of ourselves – clones which are better, smarter, and immortal? 

This film explores these questions with visionaries including: Nick Bostrom, author of Superintelligence, Hiroshi Ishiguro, developer of his own uncannily realistic clone Geminoid; Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human; Ben Goertzel, founder of Singularity.net who coined the term Artificial General Intelligence; and Deepak Chopra, who is creating his own A.I. mind twin. These visionaries see humanity advancing toward a new age of post-biological life, a world of intelligence without bodies, immortal identity without the limitations of disease, death, and unfulfilled desire. As scientists on the forefront of technology show that a world where humans and machines merge isn’t so far away, we have to ask ourselves will AI be the best, or the last thing we ever do?

Opening film at Hot Docs 2021

¨A fascinating foray deep into the realms of artificial intelligence, machine learning and biotechnology.¨ National Post  Chris Knight

¨The movie at once understands both the beauty and enormity of the possibilities.¨  Global News  Chris Jancelewicz

Mind Forward

The symbiosis of the brain / mind and artificial intelligence will give rise to a new humanity, a kind of ´super-humanity´.

Brain-machine communication will allow that the cognitive capabilities of human beings will be enhanced, giving rise to the first augmented humans. Connected brains will lead to powerful synthetic telepathy technologies making it possible to not only to read other person’s thoughts, but also manipulate them. But where what are the potential benefits and pitfalls of these new technologies?

Neuro – technologies are about to cause a radical social shift that will change our understanding of the inner self and our very conception of reality. Neuro – rights will be foremost, necessitating regulations that guarantee the privacy of our conscious or even subconscious thoughts.

Mind Forward explores the frontiers of this brave new world.

Forging the Future (series)

Filmed across North America, Europe, and Australia, and mastered in 4K, this six-part series focuses on the most exciting disciplines in popular science today.

Each episode features a deep dive into: Artificial Intelligence, Achieving Immortality, Living Off the Earth, Genetic Engineering, Cyborg Technology, and creating a Disease-Free World with the Human Microbiome.

By showing how the most cutting-edge technologies work across these fields, the series reveals the real-world impact they will have, and the hopeful futures they will create—and which this series dramatically reveals—for humanity and the planet.

Through immersive, ‘you are there’ filmmaking, each episode presents the most esteemed technologists and scientists in action at the world’s most advanced facilities—including those at elite institutions like Harvard University, MIT, Columbia University.

To overcome some of our greatest challenges, they are using gene-editing technologies to fight life-threatening genetic disorders, using Artificial Intelligence to develop robotic consciousness, creating outside-the-box treatments that can reverse ageing, or even using Computer-Assisted Telepathy that gives a person control of another person’s body!

Forging the Future offers unique, first person perspectives from some of the most respected scientists today, as they help to create a better future for everyone.

Episode 1 Cyborg Revolution won the 2021 Gold Award at the New York Festivals TV and Film for Best Science and Technology episode, and Episodes 4 and 5 (Life off Earth and Disease Free World) both won Finalist Awards. Details here, here and here.

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Episode 1 – Cyborg Revolution

We’ve all seen Cyborgs in Hollywood blockbusters. But it turns out these fictional beings aren’t so far-fetched. In fact, this episode features a true-to-life cyborg, who at four months of age, was the youngest American to be outfitted with a myoelectric hand. And at one ground-breaking engineering facility, engineers are developing biotechnologies that can even further enhance high-tech like this by giving mechanical prosthetics something incredible: the physical sensation of touch!

Other engineering firms are gearing up powerful exoskeletons that both rehabilitate and enhance the power of the human body… improving the lives of those with paralysis and transforming the work force.

But the real pivot is getting machines inside the body. An out-of-the-box ‘transhumanist’ featured in the episode installs a chip inside a person’s hand. It works as a key that unlocks doors, literally and figuratively.

However, brain-machine integration poses the biggest challenges, and the biggest rewards. Cutting-edge neuroscientists and technologists reveal how computer chips can directly interface with the human brain in ways that not only rehabilitate, but which can also ‘read thoughts’ in real-time.

Remarkably, a breakthrough technology called ‘Computer Assisted Telepathy’ is achieving the impossible. Through a test subject’s mind only, she’s able to control another person’s body. Technologies like these will pave the way toward the Cyborg Revolution.

  

 

Episode 2 – Hyper Intelligence

Everyone has heard about Artificial Intelligence (or AI), but very few people know what it is or how it actually works. This episode brings this otherwise abstract topic to life by visiting the most cutting-edge engineering firms where innovative technologists are using AI to transform machines into thinking robots.

Leading institutions are preparing robot rovers and flying drones to navigate through unmapped territories, in order to save lives in bold Search and Rescue missions. By ‘mapping as they go’, these thinking machines generate their own intelligence—allowing them to self-navigate without human input. Additionally, some technologists are coordinating swarms of drones to operate and collaborate together—all with the explicit ambition of improving the efficiency of farming and increasing food production.

Though the news media often reports on how machines could cause unemployment, that’s not what AI inventors in this program are saying. In fact, their AI-driven robots are using machine-learning to work better with humans. Through observation, AI robots are learning to anticipate the actions of human co-workers, keeping people safer in the workplace – and making it more productive.

Some scientists in this show are even developing AI robots that are achieving the beginnings of robotic consciousness. By comprehending their own self-image, they are able to learn about their environment, make decisions, and navigate the space around them – just as  human babies do. Other engineers are taking this technology even further to develop real-world Androids – that is, robots that look, feel, and act like people.

Becoming consultants, advisors, and even friends, these Androids will ultimately help individuals adjust to realities of the human condition.

 

Episode 3 – Human Immortality

If you thought Human Immortality was just a concept in science fiction, this episode reveals how it will become science fact. For some scientists featured in this program, achieving Immortality is not a question of ‘If’. The real question is ‘When?’.

One scientist shows how she is making lab-grown organs called ‘ghost hearts’ that not only grow quickly, but that can be accepted in any host’s body without rejection—ending the agony for those waiting for organ transplants. Another biologist is looking at Immortality at the microbiological level. In his lab, he’s identified the ‘longevity gene’ (called SIR2) that can slow the ageing process, and which holds the key that will unlock our ability to better control the rate at which we age. One gerontologist is unearthing the immortal secrets of lobsters, who never stop growing and naturally live up to the astonishing age of 122 years. Inspired by how their bodies regulate cellular division, he’s developing cutting-edge medications that will boost human longevity.

Incredibly, one pioneer is creating a unique medical cocktail that can even reverse ageing. Medical techniques like these could pave the way to Human Immortality.

  

 

Episode 4 – Life Off Earth

If you thought The Space Race peaked with the Apollo missions, wait until permanent research bases on the Moon and Mars start cropping up.

The New Space Race to get humans to Mars is heating up, and this episode presents the visionaries who are making this future possible. Once exclusively financed by governments, private companies are now developing the means of living in outer space.

On the cutting edge of this Copernican Revolution is the Dream Chaser—a new, high-flying space shuttle that will ferry researchers to inflatable research habitats in outer space. But creating permanent habitats in the toxic environments on the Moon and Mars is a serious undertaking. Scientists and engineers take these threats to human life very seriously. One engineer is creating advanced, reusable spacesuits that makes mobility and dexterity less bulky, and more feasible in gravity-free environments.

Other engineers featured in the episode are helping in these efforts by developing high-tech drills and pressurization chambers that allow for the excavation of the most crucial resource for the survival of humanity: Liquid Water.

These are just a few parts of the complex efforts needed to establish habitats on alien planets.

One firm is developing habitats that are 3D printed with Martian soil, and will be pre-built before astronauts arrive. But one of the boldest endeavours lies in creating a living, breathing ecosystem that, through plant growth, generates oxygen and food for the first permanent settlers on the Moon and Mars.

An ambitious research project—30 years in the making—is providing the ‘ground-truth’ of how to create an Earth-like Biosphere in outer space… providing a road map for how humanity will survive and even thrive in the life-threatening conditions of other planets.

 

Episode 5 – Disease-Free World: The Microbiome

To create a disease-free world, scientists are pushing the envelope in every conceivable corner. This episode features the most cutting-edge scientists out there—including Nobel-prize winners—who are harnessing the power of what’s called “The Microbiome.”

The Microbiome is the full array of the trillions of microorganisms that live in or on the human body, which help it function. By understanding the Microbiome as a kind of ecosystem, scientists are using innovative techniques to discern the microbes’ various functions in the body as a whole.

Incredibly, through revealing the function of one particular micro-organism, one scientist has been able to cure Stomach Cancer. But other scientists armed with this knowledge are attempting the unthinkable: namely, to increase the presence of microbes across the body by intentionally infecting people with more infectious agents. The reason? Increasing microbial diversity in the body boosts its immunity, and helps people fight disease from the inside out.

Radical methods like these are leading to breakthrough remedies, from the erasure of life-threatening infections like C. Difficile, to ending Asthma and Obesity. Innovative research like this will inform the biotechnologies of the future, and in turn create a disease-free world.

 

Episode 6 – The Rise of Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering extends far beyond the controversial news headlines that obsess over ‘designer babies’. In the science community, gene-editing tools like CRISPR and PRIME editing will do nothing less than save the planet.

Methods like this allow scientists to alter and ‘re-program’ the genetics of living organisms.

This episode shows scientists at large using gene-editing technologies to revolutionize the food supply chain, bolstering food crops to prevent famines, and even speed up reforestation efforts that will reverse global warming. Genetic Engineering in farm animals is helping scientists to ‘select’ desirable traits, like physical features and gender. Incredibly, one scientist is using gene-editing technologies to resurrect the DNA of extinct species, like the Wooly Mammoth!

Despite some public concern, gene-editing is definitely a cause for hope in the fight against genetic disorders in humans. It’s already reversing a type of congenital blindness in children. And with the hyper-precision afforded by PRIME editing being prepared for clinical trials, a much more hopeful world will be revealed for families in the future.

The Internet of Everything

The Internet is invading all aspects of your life. No longer confined to your computer or your phone, the Internet is now in garbage cans, refrigerators, and the infrastructure of our cities. The future will either be a surveillance nightmare or an eco-utopia, the outcome determined by startups in Silicon Valley and Shenzhen.

The Internet of Everything captures our present moment, when both futures still seem possible. 

Brett Gaylor – a reformed techno-utopian who works in the tech industry – will be your guide.

His award winning documentaries Rip! A Remix Manifesto and Do Not Track have mapped the public’s relationship with the Internet; first fascination and obsession, then growing discomfort around the abuse of our private information, and now a sense of confusion and dread.  If the pace of change and lack of agency is confusing for a techie like Brett, everyone else is probably feeling bewildered, too.

But now, with the connecting of the physical world into the “Internet of Things”, the stakes have been raised – it’s no longer just the abstractions of cyberspace that are spinning out of control, but instead our homes, our bodies and our cities that are being transformed.

It’s a fast, funny and enlightening take on the bewildering change the Internet has wrought. The Internet of Everything embraces the “tech-lash” while reflecting on the big picture of a world where we are all connected.

 

A five webisode miniseries is also available comprising new, complementary stories

 

Episode 1 – Screen time

It’s easy to point our finger at kids for too much screen time — we’ve all laughed at memes of children on their phones at the museum, in the park, or on a camping trip… but as adults, are we any better?

At his home in Victoria, B.C., reformed techno-utopian Brett Gaylor, like most parents, is in a constant battle between his kids and screens. But what happens when the internet moves beyond the screen and into the world around us? With innumerable connected objects and spaces, depending on how you see it, we’re either living in a futuristic utopia or a nightmarish surveillance state. Every connected product comes with a trade-off — from the carbon footprint of smart assistants, to the complicated health insurance implications of wearables, or safety concerns around self-driving cars.

 

Episode 2 – Alexa, Save the Planet

Ever wondered how much energy is needed for Alexa to play that 90s dance hits playlist you love so much? More than you think.

There are already 66 million smart assistants in operation in the United States alone, and the number is growing daily. But what are we trading for the convenience of turning the lights on with our voice? Director Brett Gaylor approaches the question from a child’s point of view with his daughter Layla as they grapple to understand the enormous amount of energy and processing power involved in the machine learning powering Alexa. In parallel, Amazon’s corporate carbon footprint continues to grow, between the massive amount of non-renewable energy used to power their web services, or the ongoing pollution from transport emissions. In 2018, staff protests prompt shareholders to confront management, demanding a plan for climate change and a reduction of the company’s dependence on fossil fuels.

 

Episode 3 – In Good Hands

It’s easy to get sucked into the cute graphics of your health monitoring app, but the data captured by your FitBit or smart watch is being used for much more than simply encouraging you to up your step count.

Director Brett Gaylor travels to the outskirts of Paris where four young roommates try out fitness trackers for the first time, allowing him to monitor their health data. He finds out much more about their lives than they were expecting — what time they go to bed, when they go to the convenience store for a late night snack, and who’s sleeping with whom. This is creepy enough in and of itself, but it gets worse when the data falls into the hands of third parties. Health Insurance companies and corporate “wellness” programs are using health data obtained from fitness trackers to make decisions about how much your health insurance should cost, or whether or not they will insure you at all.

 

Episode 4 – Take the Wheel

The fantasy of stepping into a self-driving car and kicking back to read, nap or work until you arrive at your destination has universal appeal. But are the cars, or the cities in which we plan to let them loose, up to the task?

Director Brett Gaylor travels to northern France where the company TEQMO is testing self-driving cars in common accident scenarios, such as getting cut-off at an intersection. Let’s just say, they still have some testing to do. On the infrastructure front, hacker Cesar Cerato is on a mission to expose weaknesses in smart city traffic systems. Steps from the White House in Washington, he is surprised to discover that Washington’s traffic sensors aren’t encrypted. With pedestrians and drivers’ lives at risk, algorithmic driving where we can trust the data to make the right decision seems to be a long way off.

 

Episode 5 – See Something, Say Something

The Ring doorbell camera is positioned as a great way to monitor who or what’s at the door, whether you’re home or not. But preying on consumers’ fears of their Amazon packages getting stolen, or worse, is having far-reaching impacts on communities and policing practices around the world.

Director Brett Gaylor meets community activists in Skid Row, Los Angeles, where law enforcement has partnered with Amazon’s Ring, with some unintended consequences. On a map obtained from the police, the activists notice that “hot spots,” where police predict crimes will occur based on users’ “reports of suspicision,” are often found not in the heart of Skid Row, but at the outskirts, where gentrifying communities are clashing with their less fortunate, often non-white neighbours. By embracing these technologies, are the police protecting everyone, or just the gentrified?

 

 

The Rise of Jordan Peterson

With incredible exclusive access, The Rise of Jordan Peterson after he took a public stance against trans human rights legislation in Canada in late 2016 rising to meteoric global fame for denouncing political correctness.

Jordan Peterson gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the firestorm sparked by provocative professor and best selling author Filmmaker Patricia Marcoccia follows psychology professor Jordan Peterson as he navigates his way through the biggest controversy of his career. With candid interviews and unparalleled access to Peterson, his family, and to transgender and social justice activists who opposed his views, the documentary provides a fascinating look at this internationally scrutinised dispute.

Sparking both outrage and support, Peterson’s criticisms of Canada’s policies to enforce legal rights for non-binary gender identification were met with protests and calls for his dismissal from his tenured university position, as well as an outpouring of social and financial support for his public commentary on the underlying dangers of cultures becoming too politically correct.

Peterson quickly became a rorschach test for society: he was denounced as transphobic and bigoted by some, and praised as a hero for civil liberties by others. His public lectures, which were critical of social trends to tow the politically correct line, quickly transformed him into a famous public intellectual, internationally best-selling author and an academic rock star who tours sold-out venues around the world.

This film takes an unprecedented look at Jordan Peterson and explores the tension between free speech and hate speech, exploring points-of-view of those on both sides of this heightened debate.

To rent or buy, visit Vimeo,  iTunesAmazon or Google Play.

Eminent Monsters

Eminent Monsters traces the roots of western governments love affair with torture.

In  1950s Montreal Scottish born psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron experimented on his patients, using sensory deprivation, forced comas and LSD injections. Covertly funded by the Canadian government and the CIA, his techniques have been used in Northern Ireland, Guantánamo and 27 countries around the world.

Including extraordinary first hand testimony from Guantanamo survivors, the Hooded Men from Northern Ireland and senior American psychologists and military personnel, Eminent Monsters shows how the collusion of doctors to aid and abet torture began in the 1950s and continues to this day.

The Power of Play

Lizards do it.  Even fish do it. The animal world is showing us why play is a serious matter.

Through a combination of ongoing experiments, reconstructed experiments and guided observation, The Power of Play reveals surprising truths about play in the natural world. 

Scientists from Europe, the United States and Canada, many of them pioneers in the field, offer convincing evidence that play is not to be taken lightly. In fact, it has the power to make animals and humans smarter, healthier and more likely to survive.

The Price of Fairness

Why do we accept huge levels of inequality and social injustice? This is one of the central questions that The Price of Fairness sets out to answer, beginning with a surprising set of social experiments in Norway, which suggest that our willingness to support systems of inequality is far greater than we are often prepared to admit.

In Atlanta, we take a different look at fairness, from the perspective of a group of capuchin monkeys. Behavioural scientist Sarah Bronson’s work with the monkeys questions the idea that we have an evolutionary tendency towards selfish behaviour. Could it be that the outrage we feel towards systems of inequality have roots in our human need for cooperation? 

We visit Costa Rica and Iceland to see how whole economies have been engineered to function with greater ‘fairness’, and the US where systematic racial injustices have tested many of their citizens hopes for a fairer justice system.

From the caste-biased villages of India to the race-sensitive streets of Ferguson, Missouri, this documentary explores our understanding of fairness and what it takes to change an unfair system.

Touching on issues of economic, political, racial and gender inequality, this film offers a thought-provoking and timely look at what fairness really means to us. 

Burzynski: Cancer Cure Cover Up

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up is the story of a pioneering biochemist who discovered a unique and proprietary method of successfully treating most cancers. This documentary takes the audience on a near 50-year journey both Dr. Burzynski and his patients have been enduring in order to obtain FDA-approved clinical trials of Antineoplastons. Defying the face of skepticism, legal attacks from state and federal agencies, and a powerful propaganda campaign to stop Burzynski – this doctor and his patients are still going strong.

Due to the continued failed efforts of state and federal agencies in their attempts to stop Burzynski from continuing to treat patients and expand his research, special interest groups have since launched a relentless propaganda campaign against Dr. Burzynski, and his supporters and patients, in hopes  that this game-changing innovation never reach the open market.

The primary reason that the cancer industry and its regulatory agencies fear the approval of Antineoplastons is purely economical.

If Antineoplastons were FDA-approved for just one cancer type this would mean that anyone of any age diagnosed with any type of cancer could legally insist their oncologist provide them with Antineoplastons “off-label”.   Given the gentle and nontoxic nature of these medications, most people would begin to opt for Antineoplastons as a first line of defense against their cancer instead of first choosing life-threatening yet profitable chemotherapy and radiation.

Burzynski: The Cancer Cure Cover-up investigates this hidden cancer treatment and the decades of failed lawsuits the US government and FDA have pursued in order to try to silence him.

Guardians of the New World

Until recently, many of us thought we were safe online and that the Internet provided a safe haven to share ideas and democratise information with the security of privacy. But then headlines emerged with stories of Wikileaks, Snowden and the NSA.

Guardians of the New World introduces us to the world of hacker culture. Emerging from the 70’s counterculture around conceptions of personal freedom, decentralisation of power and sharing, hacking really came to prominence with the emergence of the Internet as a ubiquitous public forum from the late 90’s onwards.

Hackers have emerged as both a threat to government and civilian security, or its saviour, often depending on your point of view.

Governments are starting to see the dangers presented both from outside their borders and within from this subculture of devoted keyboard warriors and are responding with force. In the USA the authorities do their best to keep up with those suspected of online subversion, while other governments have threatened to switch off the Internet all together. Far from being safe behind their screens, the new digital revolutionaries are being thrown behind bars, or in some countries like Syria tortured, while hackers in other countries do their best to support them, and keep their networks secure.

Guardians of the New World gives context to this often misunderstood subculture. For behind closed doors, in bedrooms and living rooms across the world, a war is being fought that will affect us all, and the battlefield is online.