Almost Human

Algorithms of Beauty

October 2022 •English

In 1772, Englishwoman Mary Delany wrote to her niece: “I have found a new way of imitating flowers.” The imitation in question was the art form called decoupage, based on cut-outs and reshuffling of pictures. The charm and botanical precision of these works attracts attention of even today’s artists, among others by an anonymous programmer who is trying to invent a way of capturing the flowers’ vivacity in pictures. With this aim in mind, she has created an algorithm, which would combine science and beauty, similarly to Delaney’s efforts, whose illustrations it is meant to animate.

Holy Land: Startup Nations

March 2017 •English

With the most tech startups and venture capital per capita in the world, Israel has long been hailed as The Startup Nation. WIRED’s feature-length documentary looks beyond Tel Aviv’s vibrant, liberal tech epicenter to the wider Holy Land region – the Palestinian territories, where a parallel Startup Nation story is emerging in East Jerusalem, Nazareth, Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, as well as in the Israeli cybersecurity hub of Be’er Sheva. And we will learn how the fertile innovation ecosystem of Silicon Wadi has evolved as a result of its unique political, geographical and cultural situation and explore the future challenges – and solutions – these nations are facing.

In the belly of AI

February 2025 •French

Magical, autonomous, all-powerful… Artificial intelligences feed our dreams as well as our nightmares. But while tech giants promise the advent of a new humanity, the reality of their production remains totally hidden. While data centers are concreting landscapes and drying up rivers, millions of workers around the world are preparing the billions of data that will feed the voracious algorithms of Big Tech, at the cost of their mental and emotional health. They are hidden in the belly of AI. Could they be the collateral damage of the ideology of “Longtermism” that has been brewing in Silicon Valley for several years?

1997: The Birth of the Camera Phone

June 2017 •English

On June 11th, 1997, Philippe Kahn created the first camera phone solution to share pictures instantly on public networks. The impetus for this invention was the birth of Kahn's daughter, when he jerry-rigged a mobile phone with a digital camera and sent photos in real time. In 2016 Time Magazine included Kahn's first camera phone photo in their list of the 100 most influential photos of all time.

Life and Death at the Ambassador Hotel

November 1994 •English

1994 at the Ambassador Hotel, 55 Mason Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California. From 1978 to 1996, the hotel was managed by Hank Wilson, a San Francisco LGBT activist who made the hotel a model for harm reduction housing. 134 run-down and exhausted rooms populated by homeless men and women, sometimes even children. All of them in urgent need of care, compassion and humanity. Nobly provided by voluntarily working professional health care and social workers staff, various benefactors, volunteers, neighbors, and community contributions.

A Film to Pass the Time

Invalid date •English

Set against nostalgic analog noise, this is an ultra-processed film which pays homage to lost media and the dead art of videotaped home movies. Taking place primarily in the United States, two strippers look into getting hired at a club in Colorado, a young musician reunites with her family in Missouri, and a German woman flies from Berlin to the U.S. to help her friend finish a film in Texas.

Eco-Hack!

November 2022 •English

Conservation biologist Tim Shields sees urgency in the field and finds that traditional conservation practices are lacking when it comes to saving desert tortoise populations from ravens. He goes rogue, employing an arsenal of lasers, exploding model turtles, drones and desert rovers as a means of protecting the tortoise's dwindling numbers.

Coded Bias

November 2020 •English

Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Koyaanisqatsi

April 1983 •English

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.

Cyborgs Among Us

June 2017 •English

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.

Land of White Alice

January 1960 •English

Film sponsored by Western Electric (AT&T's equipment manufacturing division), the builder of the United States Air Force's White Alice Communications System in Alaska. Introduces the people and geography of the new state as well as the Western Electric radio-relay system, which links far-flung military sites, alert stations, and missile-warning facilities. Ralph Caplan praised the film's "intrinsically dramatic and highly photogenic" portrayal of communications equipment.

The Genius of George Boole

September 2015 •English

Narrated by Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, The Genius of George Boole assembles academics and industry leaders from across the globe to explore the life and importance of one of the world’s greatest unsung heroes.

Before Macintosh: The Apple Lisa

January 2024 •English

Explores the history, technology, people, stories and industry influence of this lesser-known personal computer. The film profiles important individuals involved in the creation of the computer, plus its life after cancellation, both as an entry-level Macintosh compatible and as a collectible. The work of Douglas Engelbart and his team, plus advances from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) with their Alto and Star workstations were the initial innovators of the Graphical User Interface (GUI), but the Apple Lisa stands as the clear foundation for what we all use today -- Macintosh -- Windows -- iOS -- Android.

Revolution OS

March 2001 •English

REVOLUTION OS tells the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement.

Bamboo Theatre

September 2019 •

This film is a portrait of unique cultural space for Spirits, Gods and People. While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cities, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century - Bamboo Theatre.

The Social Dilemma

January 2020 •English

This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.

Greenpeace the story

September 2011 •English

Deepfaking Sam Altman

March 2025 •English

Director Adam Bhala Lough sets out to better understand the technology and people at the center of the AI boom. His quest sends him on a path towards the father of AI, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. When he isn’t able to sit down with Altman himself, Adam travels to India to create an AI version of him to interview instead.

AlphaGo

September 2017 •English

The ancient Chinese game of Go has long been considered a grand challenge for artificial intelligence. Yet in 2016, Google's DeepMind team announced that they would be taking on Lee Sedol, the world's most elite Go champion. AlphaGo chronicles the team as it prepares to test the limits of its rapidly-evolving AI technology. The film pits man against machine, and reveals as much about the workings of the human mind as it does the future of AI.

Intelligence artificielle - Quand les émotions s'en mêlent

November 2021 •French

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, the line between humans and machines continues to blur, and everything is evolving at an astonishing pace as this technology offers tantalizing promises. However, some researchers, including 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Geoffrey Hinton, warn about its exponential power. A deep dive into the dizzying complexities of AI.