Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology

Last updated
Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology
Connected The Film Poster.png
Connected poster
Directed by Tiffany Shlain
Written byTiffany Shlain
Carlton Evans
Sawyer Steele
Ken Goldberg
Produced byTiffany Shlain
Carlton Evans
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Edited byDalan McNabola
Tiffany Shlain
Sawyer Steele
Music by Gunnard Doboze
Distributed byPaladin Films (US)
ro*co films (outside US)
Release date
Running time
85 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology is an autobiographical documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain, dedicated to her father. [1] The film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Tiffany's father Dr. Leonard Shlain, MD battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain attempts to reveal the ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead. [2]

Contents

The production of the film took four years, and it is Shlain's eighth film. Leonard Shlain died in 2009 and did not see the finished film. [3]

Release

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011, [4] and opened theatrically in 11 cities including San Francisco, [5] Marin, Berkeley, Monterey, Seattle, Denver, Portland, [6] LA [7] and New York [8] in the fall of 2011 in an exclusive release theatrical tour. In 2012 Connected was selected by the U.S. State Department to tour with The American Film Showcase to represent America. [9] With the American Film Showcase, the film was sent to embassies around the world [10] and Director Tiffany Shlain traveled to South Africa [11] and Israel to screen the film and teach filmmaking workshops. In Tiffany Shlain's AOL Original series, The Future Starts Here there is an episode in Season 2 called Punk Rock Diplomacy that takes you behind the scenes on her tour with the American Film Showcase. [12] Connected aired on KQED in 2013 and is now available[ promotional language ] on DVD and digital platforms including iTunes, [13] Netflix [14] and more. [15]

Reception

Critical reception has been mixed. The film received 36% positive reviews on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. [16]

Awards and festivals

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slamdance Film Festival</span> Annual film festival held in Utah, USA

The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which also hosts a screenplay competition, workshops, screenings throughout the year and events with an emphasis on independent films with budgets under US$1 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Goldberg</span> American computer scientist

Kenneth Yigael Goldberg is an American artist, writer, inventor, and researcher in the field of robotics and automation. He is professor and chair of the industrial engineering and operations research department at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at Berkeley, with joint appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), Art Practice, and the School of Information. Goldberg also holds an appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Leonard Shlain was an American surgeon, author, and inventor. He was chairperson of laparoscopic surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, and was an associate professor of surgery at University of California, San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ondi Timoner</span> American film director

Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a full-service production company located in Pasadena, California. Timoner is a two-time recipient of the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for her documentaries Dig! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). Both films have been acquired by New York's Museum of Modern Art for their permanent collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffany Shlain</span> American filmmaker and author (1970)

Tiffany Shlain is an American filmmaker and author. Described by the public radio program On Being as "an internet pioneer", Shlain is the co-founder of the Webby Awards and the founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

<i>The Tribe</i> (2005 film) 2005 American film

The Tribe is a short documentary film directed by Tiffany Shlain and narrated by Peter Coyote. Weaving together archival footage, graphics and animation, it tells the history of both the Barbie doll and the Jewish people from Biblical times to the present.

Keegan DeWitt American musician

Keegan DeWitt is an American film composer, singer-songwriter, and actor. He was raised in Oregon and now resides in Los Angeles. He is the lead singer of the indie rock band Wild Cub, as well as a composer for film scores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Garbus</span> American film director and producer

Elizabeth Freya Garbus is an American documentary film director and producer. Notable documentaries Garbus has made are The Farm: Angola, USA,Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,Bobby Fischer Against the World,Love, Marilyn,What Happened, Miss Simone?, and Becoming Cousteau. She is co-founder and co-director of the New York City-based documentary film production company, The Story Syndicate.

Walter Robot is a creative studio founded by artist Bill Barminski and director Christopher Louie. They work in multiple mediums including film, television, art and sculpture. Their film work has screened at several film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival where in 2012 the festival hosted a retrospective of their work. Their artwork has been showcased in several installations and galleries in Los Angeles, New York and London. In 2014, to much critical success, they worked with the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra and staged the first ever interactive animated version of The Cunning Little Vixen opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Film Festival</span> Annual film festival held in Utah, United States

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. It takes place each January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres.

Cynthia Wade is an American television, commercial and film director, producer and cinematographer based in New York City. She has directed documentaries on social issues including Shelter Dogs in 2003 about animal welfare and Freeheld in 2007 about LGBT rights as well as television commercials and web campaigns. She has won over 40 film festival awards, won an Oscar in 2008, and was nominated for her second Oscar in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Sundance Film Festival</span>

The 27th annual Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20, 2011 until January 30, 2011 in Park City, Utah, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2011 Slamdance Film Festival</span> American film festival in Utah

The 2011 Slamdance Film Festival was a film festival held in Park City, Utah from January 20 to January 27, 2011. It was the 17th iteration of the Slamdance Film Festival, an alternative to the more mainstream Sundance Film Festival.

Sterlin Harjo is an American filmmaker. He has directed three feature films, a feature documentary, and the FX comedy series Reservation Dogs, all of them set in his home state of Oklahoma and concerned primarily with Native American people and content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 Sundance Film Festival</span>

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 22 to February 1, 2015. What Happened, Miss Simone?, a biographical documentary film about American singer Nina Simone, opened the festival. Comedy-drama film Grandma, directed by Paul Weitz, served as the closing night film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliza Hittman</span> American film director

Eliza Hittman is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer from New York City. She has won multiple awards for her film Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which include the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award—both for best screenplay.

<i>Cartel Land</i> 2015 American documentary film

Cartel Land is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Matthew Heineman about the Mexican Drug War, especially vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels. The film focuses on Tim "Nailer" Foley, the leader of Arizona Border Recon, and Dr. José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician who leads the Autodefensas. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</span> American film director

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Moss (filmmaker)</span>

Jesse Moss is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer known for his cinéma vérité style. His 2014 film, The Overnighters, was shortlisted for best documentary feature at the Oscars. He has directed four independent, feature-length films, and three television documentaries and has produced 15 documentaries.

Technology Shabbat or Tech Shabbat is a term coined in 2010 by Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg to describe a day of rest or cessation from the use of all technology with screens: smartphones, personal computers, tablets and television. Shlain introduced the concept, modeled on the traditional Jewish Shabbat, in a series of articles and films after participating in The National Day of Unplugging, an event sponsored by nonprofit think tank Reboot.

References

  1. "Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology". IMDb . Retrieved 7 Nov 2011.
  2. "Synopsis" Archived 2011-01-27 at the Wayback Machine connectedthefilm.com, accessed February 14, 2012
  3. Macaulay, Scott (16 October 2011). "Director Tiffany Shlain on Connected - Filmmaker Magazine".
  4. "The 10 Best Films From Sundance 2011". pastemagazine.com. 2 February 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  5. Guadan, Deborah (September 15, 2011). "Movies opening this week, Sept. 15". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  6. "Tiffany Shlain's Connected, opening this weekend / Boing Boing". boingboing.net. 14 September 2011.
  7. Los Angeles Times (4 September 2011). "Fall Sneaks list". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  8. Kehr, Dave (September 16, 2011). "October Release Schedule". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  9. "Local Filmmaker to Become a US Film Ambassador - The Bay Citizen". The Bay Citizen. Archived from the original on 24 January 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  10. "AFS 2012 – American Film Showcase". usc.edu. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  11. "American Film Showcase: 'Connected' in Cape Town". International Documentary Association. 2 October 2012. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  12. "Punk Rock Diplomacy: What Is It And What Can It Do For The World?". The Huffington Post. 31 October 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  13. Amanda Walgrove (6 February 2013). ""Connected" Film Explores Future of Web Communication Through Personal Lens, Now Available on iTunes". What's Trending. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  14. "The 50 Best Documentaries Streaming on Netflix 2014". pastemagazine.com. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  15. "Cinema Assassin". cinemaassassin.com. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  16. "Connected". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango . Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  17. "2012 (I) Winners". thelamovieawards.com. Retrieved 27 January 2015.