IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling
Serial
Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder WORLD PREMIERE
USA, 2014 cross-platform, color Director: Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder Music: Nick Thorburn, Mark Henry Phillips Production: Emily Condon Co-Production: Dana Chivvis Executive Production: Julie Snyder, Sarah Koenig Advisor: Ira Glass Website: www.serialpodcast.org
Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder & Ira Glass:
This American Life (cross-platform, ongoing series)
This interactive quest is a search for the true circumstances behind the murder of the American schoolgirl Hae Min Lee in 1999, when she was found strangled in a park. Her former boyfriend Adnan Syed has been in prison ever since, but claims he is innocent. Fascinated by this story with its Shakespearian elements of young lovers, jealousy and murder, producer Sarah Koenig immersed herself in the tragedy 15 years after the fact. In her weekly podcast Koenig takes listeners back to 1999 and discovers along the way that this story has multiple layers and inconsistencies, as with any other real event. She shares eyewitness accounts and interviews by those involved, along with her own philosophical ruminations with her online followers. Like genuine private investigators, they can snoop around in the “Maps, Photos, etc.” folder reading handwritten letters, or peer at the map of the crime scene, indicating where Hae’s body was found. Week after week, together with Sarah, we chew over the question of whether Adnan really did murder Hae.
Seven Digital Deadly Sins Loc Dao, Pablo Vio, Lindsay Poulton, Jeremy Mendes, Francesca Panetta INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
UK, Canada, 2014 cross-platform, color Director: Loc Dao, Pablo Vio, Lindsay Poulton, Jeremy Mendes, Francesca Panetta Cinematography: David Aspinall, Liam Mitchell Editing: Liam Mitchell, Dave Ehrenreich Webdesign/Web Development: Jam3Media Production: Alicia Smith & Janine Steele for National Film Board of Canada Executive Production: Loc Dao for National Film Board of Canada, Francesca Panetta & Lindsay Poulton for Guardian Screening Copy: National Film Board of Canada Website: www.nfb.ca/sins
Loc Dao & NFB:
Welcome to PinePoint (crossplatform, 2011), Bear 71 (crossplatform, 2012), The Last Hunt (cross-platform, 2013), Circa 1948 (cross-platform, 2014), The Devils Toy Redux (cross-platform, 2014)
Francesca Panetta & The Guardian:
Firestorm (cross-platform, 2013), The Shirt on Your Back (cross-platform, 2014), World War One (cross-platform, 2014)
The invention of the Internet is the most significant event in the history of mankind since the Industrial Revolution. Steam engines and factories freed us from manual labor in the fields and gave us leisure time; now Facebook and Twitter allow us to lead virtual lives on a global scale. Social media have freed us from the limitations of our physical being, but not from ourselves. So what influence has the digital revolution had on our morals and our values? Seven Digital Deadly Sins probes this question on the basis of the classic seven deadly sins, making use of the communications possibilities offered by the Internet: videos, posts and polls. The tone of the video interviews with well-known Britons is tongue-in-cheek. Folk singer Billy Bragg admits spending whole days watching “fail videos,” while novelist Gary Shteyngart claims to have outsourced his entire literary production to Bangalore. And comedian Josie Long reveals that she kicked her boyfriend out to spend more time on Twitter. But above all, it’s the stories of 20 anonymous Internet users – a cyberbully, a hacker who takes control of cars using a computer, a couple whose wedding went viral – that demonstrate that the Internet has in fact changed some aspects of our actions, thought and judgment.
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