This weekend, the Mozilla Toronto office will host six leading documentary film-making teams. Their mission: pair up with web developers to push the envelope of documentary storytelling — using cutting-edge new open source software created by the global Mozilla community.
Run in conjunction with the prestigious Hot Docs documentary film festival, the teams will use Mozilla Popcorn to create prototypes that push the limits of storytelling online — pulling context, interactivity and other web elements right into the narrative. The result: a new form of “web-native” cinema that lives, breathes and changes just like the open web itself.
Hot Hacks projects: prototyping the future of story
The six “Hot Hacks” projects are:
The Message: the (r)evolutionary power of climate change — a multi-platform (book + documentary + web + events) project by author Naomi Klein and director Avi Lewis.
Immigrant Nation: Using Facebook and other social media, Immigrant Nation will present a dynamic representation of immigration statistics from across the city.
Turcot: Turcot looks at Montreal’s largest highway interchange, currently scheduled for a complete demolition and rebuild. The interactivity will give residents a voice, using geo-tagging, narrative slide shows, onionskin maps and a chronological historical timeline.
Following Wise Men (working title): Building a community around astronomy through a searchable, community-sourced science web site. The project will chart astronomers and their discoveries in the context of their professors, mentors and students in an “astronomer’s family tree.”
Looking at Los Sures: Using an archival documentary (Los Sures by Diego Echeverria, 1984) about the South Williamsburg neighborhood, the project brings together new short interactive projects from thirty different artists over three years. It will annotate and expand on the original film in new ways, allowing viewers to move fluidly between the past and present.
The Last Hijack: For over 20 years Somalis have faced the horror of famine and war. The Last Hijack is a story about survival in this failed state, and about the rise of piracy and how it affects the people around it.
Part of The “Living Docs” Project
Hot Hacks is part of the Living Docs project, a series of events, projects and code to bring openness and innovation to documentary. Living Docs is a collaboration between Mozilla, ITVS, the Tribeca Film Institute, BAVC and the Center for Social Media at American University.
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