SXSW 2023 Movie & TV Roundup: Rounding up the best of the fest

This is the story of a college student named Taylor who, during her senior year, discovers that her face has been digitally copied onto the bodies of other women who participate in pornography. Without her consent, Taylor was exposed to revenge porn that made her a “star” on sites like Pornhub and 4Chan. And she is not alone. As the documentary unfolds, Taylor soon discovers that one of her best friends from her freshman year and many other acquaintances at her university have also been deepfaket in porn by the same person. And one of the most chilling statistics in the document is that while newspapers mostly speculate about how deepfake technology will be used to misrepresent politicians in the future, currently 90 percent of all deepfake content online is non-consensual pornography targeted at women . That number will only increase as technology becomes more readily available (there seem to be online tutorials on how to do this by tracking someone’s IG account).

This is an eye-opening, desperate jet of water at how emerging technology has created just another avenue for women to be harassed and abused, and sometimes in a process that’s currently legal. By the way, Taylor is not the name of the real woman who was assaulted. However, what is noticeable Another body is that neither she nor most of the other women interviewed show their true colors. The same deepfake technology that was used to make their lives miserable is also being used to obscure their facial features from the cave dwellers of the internet. Their faces and names have changed, but their truth remains untouched. From what I understand, this is a first in documentary and another example of how powerful this technology can become, especially when used as a weapon. – David Crow

blackberry

I’m old enough to remember using a BlackBerry once or twice during an internship, but not quite old enough to have ever owned one. And for people who are a few years younger, the device might as well belong to the Neolithic past; a relic from the dark days before the iPhone. This fact is the secret of blackberry‘s appeal. As the latest feature by Matt Johnson (The dirty ones, Operation Avalanche), blackberry is an introspective look at the business and creative instincts that produced a device that briefly changed the world—and then ended up in the dustbin of history barely a decade later.

It’s another cold, short-sighted view of the burgeoning tech business in the 21st century, but unlike, shall we say, The social network, this isn’t about a monster reshaping the world; It’s the story of some very short-sighted people who let that power slip away. It stars Jay Baruchel (good) as bumbling tech prodigy Mike Lazaridis and Glenn Howerton (great) as Jim Balsillie, the Type A boardroom conqueror who essentially bullies himself into becoming co-CEO of Lazaridis in 1996. Despite an awkward working relationship, their dynamic pays off well when they release the world’s first smartphone. It’s happiness and glory in the palm of your hand. At least until Apple jumps into the chat 11 years later.

An often low-key and low-key drama, blackberry avoids the historical kitsch that most films fetishize about the recent past, relying instead on the timelessness of a conflict where incongruous wills can sometimes create fleeting grandeur. With an often trembling, hand-guided and faux-documentary eye, Johnson lets the characters’ successes and failures speak for themselves in a film where the price of business remains elusive. – direct current

bottoms

In a genre marked by pent-up emotional burdens and triggers, bottoms lands devastating fits of laughter, smiling bluntly and unafraid through the absurdities of teenage life — even if it means revealing broken teeth and blood dripping down his chin. The brainchild of Seligman and her frequent lead actress, Rachel Sennott, bottoms sees the Shiva baby Couple reunited, now as co-screenwriters and co-conspirators. Together they plan a subversive attack on coming-of-age yarns, despite the fact that in that form they’ve made what is likely to be a cult classic; It’s certainly one of the most original, as it’s about two queer girls who think their best chance of meeting cheerleaders is by slapping them in the face.