52docs / 9 - The head and the heart

I’m a little torn this week.

An old friend has released what looks like a really important film.

The kind of documentary that says something meaningful about the technology increasingly shaping our lives and the harmful consequences it has on the minds of young people.

The film has a notably different website. A powerful campaigning message. It looks like a damning indictment of our Silicon Valley overlords.

But am I excited to watch it? To share it?

I am not.

And that gets to the heart of an existential dilemma in the documentary field.

We’ve been making documentaries about IMPORTANT subjects for years - climate change, factory farming, deforestation, mass extinction, the list goes on and on.

Have they had a measurable impact on any of these issues?

The assumption was that awareness would lead - somehow - to action. If only they knew, people would demand better. They would rise up and hold the corporations and the politicians accountable. Change would follow.

But it hasn’t (or has it?)

So what do we do?

Answers on a postcard please.

In the meantime I’m drawing inspiration from Bucky in seeking to plot a new course. I have had an idea!

More on that soon, for now I’m using this week’s recommendation to share a project that pushes the form and hopefully expands our minds. Because perhaps that’s what we really need before we can build the better world we all know is possible.

Review

Trailer 

Rent from the usual places

(And if you’re in the UK you can watch Molly vs The Machines on Channel 4 - and you should!)