CONNECTED: AN AUTOBLOGOGRAPHY ABOUT LOVE, DEATH AND TECHNOLOGY
82 minutes/US/English / Feature Documentary/Science & Technology
Director: Tiffany Shlain
connectedthefilm.com
ABOUT THE FILM: Between texts and tweets, memes and microchips, we’ve become great at breaking the world down into byte-sized bits. In the process we’ve stopped seeing the forest for the trees, never mind the root system that connects them all. In Connected, Tiffany Shlain—award-winning filmmaker and founder of The Webby Awards--sets out to explore these bonds with the help of her father, acclaimed author and thinker Dr. Leonard Shlain. When the unexpected happens during the making of the film, Tiffany is forced to reexamine everything she thought she knew about life, relationships, and connectedness. Tracing interdependence through history, she discovers the surprising links between right brain and left; alphabets and power; honey bees and stress; hormones and happiness; technology and nature; progress and consequences; and parents and children. The result is a personal film with universal resonance that encourages viewers to make connections of their own. Offering an exhilarating stream-of-consciousness ride, CONNECTED: A DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE is a journey through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress and morality at the dawn of the 21st century. For centuries we’ve been declaring independence. With insight, curiosity, and humor, this film asks if it’s time to declare our interdependence instead. Presented By The Moxie Institute (moxieinstitute.org). In Association with Impact Partners. Source: connectedthefilm.com
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century,” Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, artist, founder of TTHE WEBBY AWARDS, and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Her films have been selected at over 100 film festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, Rotterdam, and South By Southwest (SXSW), have won 20 awards including Audience and Grand Jury Prizes, been translated into eight languages, and been shown at museums including Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Tiffany’s films are a fusion of documentary and narrative and are known for their whimsical yet provocative approach to unraveling complicated subjects like politics, cultural identity, technology and science. Her films include LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS about reproductive rights in America, and THE TRIBE, an exploration of American Jewish identity through the history of the Barbie doll, the first documentary short to become the #1 on iTunes. She recently made, YELP: WITH APOLOGIES TO ALLEN GINSBERG'S HOWL, about our addiction to technology and the importance of occasionally “unplugging,’ which was selected as finalist for Guggenheim Museum & YouTube’s YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video and for Sundance 2011. As a director for both theater and film, she has worked with Harrison Ford, Peter Coyote and Alan Cumming and was selected as an Artist-in-Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts and for a film residency at the San Francisco Film Society. Tiffany’s films and discussion programs have been used in many diverse settings to spark dialogues about social issues. She has been singled out by The New York Times, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and The Sundance Institute for her cutting-edge work using documentaries and Internet distribution in unique ways to engage audiences. A sought-after keynote speaker known for her visual presentations, she lectures worldwide on filmmaking and the Internet’s influence on society. Invitations include Harvard, MIT, Apple theaters in NYC and SF, The Idea Festival, Fortune 500 companies, the 92nd St Y in NYC and The Sydney Opera House. She received a standing ovation from over 11,000 people after she delivered the keynote address for University of California, Berkeley’s commencement ceremony in May 2010.
Tiffany is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. She is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary studies department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking. She received her BA in film theory in the interdisciplinary studies department in 1992. She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School Executive Education and film production at New York University’s Sight & Sound program in 1990. Tiffany is a ranking Advisory Board Member of a multi-university Leadership Committee, which oversees a global research partnership that includes the MIT Engineering Systems Division's MIT Geospatial Data Center, Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership, the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation at Saïd Business School, U.C. Berkeley's Center for New Media and others working towards the transparency and security of data to effectuate positive social change.
Shlain serves on the advisory boards of The San Francisco Film Festival’s Filmmaker Advisory Committee and has served on the advisor boards for The UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media, The Fledgling Fund and on the board of The Commonwealth Club. She currently advises with The Institute for the Future and served on California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s transition team. In 2010, she was invited to advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on technology and society.
Tiffany is director of The Moxie Institute, an organization that creates films, discussion programs, theater experiences, and Internet experiments around social issues using emerging technologies. She has received 44 awards and distinctions during the course of her career for her work as a filmmaker, artist, internet advocate, leader and activist. Tiffany writes a quarterly newsletter called “Breakfast @ Tiffany’s,” and contributes to the Huffington Post.
Her feature documentary CONNECTED: A DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE, premiered in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2011 and received the Women in Film Award from National Geographic All Roads Grant. She was the only director to have two films at Sundance in 2011. The Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recently acquired the script for CONNECTED to be part of their permanent Core Collection. Her recent video art installation, SMASHING, with artist and husband Professor Ken Goldberg, premiered in New York City at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair. Tiffany and Ken have two children and live in Northern California. Source: tiffanyshlain.com
NARRATED BY: Peter Coyote (IMDB.com/name/nm0001075/). Film: IMDB.com/title/tt1727491