Actualités

We Live in Public

Directed by: Ondi Timoner

Cast: Josh Harris, Tanya Corrin

Running Time: 1 hr 30 mins

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: January 8, 2010

Plot: Josh Harris starts out as a dot com entrepreneur and becomes a video artist/demagogue in pursuit of fame.

Who’S It For? Adults, though unrated, this isn’t a film for kids. This film requires an open-minded audience.

Expectations: I’m familiar with filmmaker Timoner through her film Dig! but I knew nothing about Harris or his projects before this film.

Scorecard (0-10)

Actors:

Josh Harris as himself: Harris describes himself as someone raised by TV, but that can’t explain all his weirdness. The film is really his story, showing how he built a company valued at $80 million then lost it/spent it on a series of increasingly bizarre social experiments. Seen in a mixture of archival footage and interviews, Harris develops from a geeky...

‘We Live In Public‘

Screened at Granville 7, Vancouver International Film Festival on October 14, 2009

Director: Ondi Timoner

By Robert Shaer

I made a quick moment for Twitter minutes before the Vancouver International Film Festival screening of Ondi Timoner’s award winning documentary of lesser-known internet pioneer Josh Harris;

#Viff #WeLiveInPublic.

21 quick characters shared with those who follow my Twitter and FaceBook feeds to let them know where I was at that moment, regardless of their interest. The telltale reflection of smartphone screens on other faces in the audience suggested I wasn’t the only one taking a moment to broadcast with others what we were up to.

Described as ‘the greatest internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’, Josh Harris’ path through the 90’s, from .com millionaire to web-casting visionary to financial refugee, hiding in Ethiopia from Us creditors, is painted across Ondi Timoner’s film with great candor and remarkable fairness for Harris,...

Award-winning director Ondi Timoner's latest documentary is a captivating look at our growing dependence on the Internet.

When you got up this morning, did you immediately update your Twitter account? How many pictures of you are tagged on Facebook? When was the last time you posted a video on YouTube? If you answered "yes, a lot, and recently," you're not alone. So here's one more question: As we continue to display our lives to the eyes of the World Wide Web, are we chipping away at our very notion of and right to privacy?

We Live in Public is a voyeuristic and captivating look at our growing dependence on the Internet, through the bizarre world of Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris as he rides the rise and fall of the 1990s dot-com boom and bust. A successful businessman-artist, Harris was one of the most eccentric characters of Silicon Alley, carrying...

Josh Harris: Internet prophet or fascist dream merchant?

Josh Harris living the "Quiet" life in 1999

Photo: Interloper Films

Josh Harris was an emotionally stunted early computer nerd who came to New York City in 1984 with $900 in his pocket. He got into high-tech market research and made a bunch of money. He pioneered chat rooms and then Web TV before it was really feasible (dial-up was a stumbling block). He surfed the big Internet wave, became a name player and by the end of the '90s was worth $80 million. How did he do this? And what ever happened to him?

He did it by inventing the future. Well, by inventing the way people would live in the future. Or so he thought. But would they? Do they?

"We Live in Public," Ondi Timoner's new documentary about Harris, prompts a number of questions — about the future of privacy, the decay of intimacy,...