[Nettime-bold] Premiere from The Hacktivists, a film by Ian Walker

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: "Ian Walker" <mrwalker@pacific.net.au>
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 5:17 PM
Subject: Correction: The Hacktivists is on Wed 10th

"THE HACKTIVISTS" - The revolution will be digitised!!

WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING @ POPCORN TAXI WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 10TH

It's my pleasure to invite you all to the world premiere of my first
one-hour of television as director.  To be broadcast on ABC-TV later this
year, the 55-minute opus makes its first public outing at Popcorn Taxi (in
conjunction with TILT, dLux's Tactical Media Conference).

"Fire up your browser as we journey into cyberspace and beyond to meet THE
HACKTIVISTS, who might be just one click away from a virtual revolution.  At
the very least, they're making politics fun again."

Time: 7:30 pm - tickets on sale from 6:30pm
Date: Wednesday 10 October 2001
Where: Valhalla Cinema
Address: 166 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
Entry: $13 / $11 Concession (sorry no bookings)

So polish up your 3D glasses, book the babysitter, and see you in the bar
afterwards for some shameless backslapping and outrageous pronouncments on
the future of documentary film-making...or maybe just a quiet beer or two to
comisserate.  It nearly killed me, so now its your turn to be tortured!

Ian

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ian Walker
Director - "Information War: The Hacktivists"
Hilton Cordell Productions
54 Simpson St Bondi Beach NSW 2026
t: +61.2.93654346 m: 0414.851533
e: mrwalker@pacific.net.au
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SYNOPSIS

In the "information war" of the new millenium, the first shots have already
been fired.  And the "internet warriors" might be just one click away from a
virtual revolution.

So begins the story of THE HACKTIVISTS, a one-hour documentary which
provides a cutting edge snapshot of cultural subversion at the dawn of the
digital age.  It explores the exponential growth in anti-capitalist activism
around the world and the new nodes of protest available via computers and
the internet.  Itıs a movement thatıs leaderless, global, anarchic and
chaotic...the internet come to life!  And its coming soon to a website and a
city near you.

We meet the faces behind the groups behind the electronic protests designed
to take capitalism offline. Theirs is a world where sit-ins have become
"virtual" and where negative publicity after an "online attack" can send a
companyıs shareprice plummeting or shatter the image of the target
institution.  We hear the killer story of the legendary TOYWAR of 1999,
where a US$8 billion online toy corporation was crushed when tens of
thousands of internet activists joined in a massive online "swarm" in order
to cripple its website and stop it doing business.

THE HACKTIVISTS gets inside secret organisations like ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCE
THEATRE, ELECTROHIPPIES and FEDERATION OF RANDOM ACTION.  Their members go
by avatars such as RE:no and METAC0M...their "operations" have codenames
like MAIL-O-MATIC or DIGITAL ZAPATISMO.  We unmask the key players in the
international world of internet activism.  Can they save the world...or are
they "cyber terrorists" intent on breaking the law...or maybe just naughty
little geekboys intent on causing some digital mischief from the comfort of
their own homes?

The film plays out like a sly detective story. Across four continents, the
four main characters are revealed as planning an online protest for A20, the
next fixture in the ongoing "carnival against capitalism"Sthe Summit of the
Americas meeting in Quebec City in April 2001.  Prisons are being cleared
and a second wall built around the old walled city as Canada prepares for
itıs biggest peacetime security operation.  Canadian NART VILLENEUVE is
taking a bus from Toronto to be the "eyes and ears" of the online protest.
We see him retreating under teargas attack while chatting live with his
fellow hacktivists via his laptop and cellphone.  French codeslinger RENAUD
COURVOISIER is offering up the latest version of his protest "drawing tool"
which sends a message to the target website with every stroke of the mouse.
PAUL MOBBS and his ELECTROHIPPIES are masterminding the whole operation from
an old farmhouse in Wales which is without hot water.

But the "cybersleuth" is on their trail.  With the upsurge in web-based
activism has come a promising new enterprise...internet intelligence
agencies employed by big name companies to keep tabs on the hacktivists.
BEN VENZKE is a man at the top of his profession.  "Now you can sit halfway
around the world and shut down a companyıs ability to operate on the other
side of the world by clicking a couple of buttons."   Proving his point are
the Quebec police, who admit to shutting down their website during the
Summit in fear of Electrohippy attack. "The fact that they were so easily
intimidated by the potential of information attack is a real augury of the
future," says US defence analyst JOHN ARQUILA.  "Hacktivism works and it
will work even better as time goes by."

CREDITS

the (h)ac(k)tivists
an australian/french coproduction for abc-tv australia & arte france
directed by ian walker
produced by chris hilton (aus), peter day (uk) & laurent bocahut(fr)
edited by chris johnson




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