News

One week before production is scheduled to start on writer-director Ondi Timoner’s “Mapplethorpe,” the biopic starring Matt Smith as photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, “Imposters” actress Marianne Rendón has been cast as Patti Smith, IndieWire has learned. The role was originally slated for Zosia Mamet until she dropped out over scheduling conflicts.

What the film doesn’t have, however, is the support of Patti Smith.

Read More: HBO’s ‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures’ Doc Raises Questions, Producer Has Answers

A singer, poet, and influential member of the 1970s punk rock movement, Smith documented her seminal personal and artistic relationship with Mapplethorpe in the 2010 memoir “Just Kids,” which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. However, a rep for Smith said she opted not to be involved in the production in any way, declining to comment as to why.

“When I saw Marianne for the first time, I knew we’d finally found our Patti,...

Updated: Per Zosia Mamet’s team, the actress is no longer attached to this project due to scheduling conflicts. Our original story has been updated to reflect this new information.

The Robert Mapplethorpe biopic “Mapplethorpe” starring Matt Smith is heading into production in July, according to Interloper Films. An intimate portrait of one of the most controversial photographers in American history, the film stars Smith as Mapplethorpe.

Documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner will direct the film, which she co-wrote with Bruce Goodrich. The movie follows Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989 due to complications from AIDS. Boston Diva Productions will produce alongside Timoner’s Interloper Films.

Timoner’s most recent feature documentary, 2015’s “Brand: A Second Coming,” focused on actor-comedian Russell Brand and his journey through addiction to...

The first wave of titles screening at the 2015 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival were announced today, and the batch has us very excited indeed. First of all, the event will open with the latest documentary from Ondi Timoner, who directed the masterpieces Dig! and We Live in Public. This one is called Brand: A Second Coming, and it’s about comedian Russell Brand‘s rebirth as a “self-proclaimed revolutionary” following a bout with addiction and his rise to fame. Even if you don’t care for her subject, Timoner is the kind of filmmaker who can keep you intrigued anyway. Her past few films have also dealt with big, fascinating egos, from hot shit rocker Anton Newcombe to exhibitionist Internet pioneer Josh Harris to “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg. Timoner returns to SXSW following last year’s debut of her short Obey the Artist, on Shepard Fairey. Among the fiction selections is one of our most anticipated...

Chicago – Any film that adds to the climate debate by bringing in a fresh and intelligent voice is certainly worth one’s time. From that perspective, “Cool It” is a documentary of considerable value, though it’s less rewarding than one might hope. Though it aims to be the cinematic rebuttal to “An Inconvenient Truth,” it falls far short, in part because the film simply isn’t as well-crafted or effective as Davis Guggenheim’s 2006 Oscar-winner.

“Truth” served its purpose as a call to alarm, jettisoning the undeniable yet controversial issue of global warming into the public consciousness. As author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” Bjørn Lomborg is determined to debunk the scare-tactics and misinformation that he feels ran rampant throughout “Truth.” Yet with its reputation-cleansing montages and self-serving analysis, “Cool It” is every bit as much a manipulative work of propaganda as Guggenheim’s film, lionizing Lomborg in much the...

For those coming to Ondi Timoner's "Cool It" with a considerable amount of skepticism, the first half-hour will do little to sway you as Timoner strains to make you like Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial advocate of alternative energy strategies nicknamed for the title of his most famous book as "The Skeptical Environmentalist." After a montage gingerly demonstrates how his views on global warming have clashed with the majority of the world's scientists, Lomborg is shown caring for his mother with Alzheimer's, feeding schoolchildren in Nairobi and gazing longingly over riverbanks and outside train windows.

Occasionally someone like Stanford environmental studies professor Stephen Schneider comes on screen to wag his finger in disagreement, but when the realization sets in that Timoner is burnishing Lomborg's image only for the Greenpeace refugee to give a point-by-point repudiation of "An Inconvenient Truth" using Al Gore's favorite weapon, the slideshow, against him, there's good...

Acclaimed documentarian Ondi Timoner has a knack for picking wildly unpredictable subjects and then going all in, detailing the drama of self-destruction from an insider’s vantage point. Both Anton Newcombe, the fiery frontman of cult-rock mainstays The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Josh Harris, dotcom entrepreneur and Internet stunt artist, were brilliant, fascinating personalities dancing along the edge of personal and professional annihilation in Timoner’s previous Sundance Grand Jury Prize–winning films, Dig! (2004) and We Live in Public (2009). So one imagines the intrepid documentarian hunting around for another larger-than-life character to hitch her cameras to, a mad scientist, perhaps, who’s also a personal catastrophe-waiting-to-happen. Instead, in best-selling Danish author Bjørn Lomborg (The Skeptical Environmentalist), Timoner found a paragon of pragmatism whose controversial ideas about climate change belie the fact that he’s got a solid head on his shoulders.

In Cool It, which she unveiled at the 2010 Toronto…...

We Live in Public chronicles the blended public and private life of dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris, a prophetic visionary who predicted the evolution of the Digital Age before short-circuiting under the pressure of his own innovations.

The matter-of-fact title suggests a rumination on our eroding privacy, but while Ondi Timoner’s fascinating documentary touches on the increasing exposure of the zeitgeist, the insight is embedded in a context of where technology has gone and especially where it’s going.

Timoner introduces Harris as an isolated child with an unhealthy attachment to television, an introverted version of Jim Carrey’s character in The Cable Guy, living vicariously through shows like “Gilligan’s Island.” Interviews with his friends and family recall a lonely, often selfish recluse emotionally separated from others.

An early adoption of the Internet before its boom made Harris a millionaire and an unlikely New York playboy, throwing parties where...

Josh Harris the visionary. Josh Harris the dot-com millionaire. Josh Harris the pseudo-fascist. Josh Harris the clown. Josh Harris sending a farewell video message to his mother, who is dying of cancer – he doesn’t want to see her in person. It’s that simple.

Director Ondi Timoner met Mr. Harris when he was just starting out – and this project is the result of more than 10 years of ongoing documentary filmmaking. The film is massive, jam packed with graphic presentations and montages that summarize key events in the world of Josh Harris and the two and a half decades that shaped the man who poured his money first into Pseudo.com, the first internet television network and then into the far more disturbing "Quiet: We Live in Public".

"Quiet" can be readily described as an art project for social pariahs, a capsule hotel with every conceivable hedonistic release, all being filmed,...

DVD Playhouse: March 2010

By

Allen Gardner

Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire (Lionsgate) In-your-face, but undeniably powerful film that follows the plight of an overweight inner-city teen (Gabourey Sidbe, a real find) who must deal with an abusive mother (Mo’Nique, in a career-making turn for which she won a most-deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar), a baby born of her abusive, and absent, father, and trying to survive day-to-day with few people to offer her help, save for a sympathetic teacher (Paula Patton) in a special ed program. Director/producer Lee Daniels, a former personal manager/producer-turned-filmmaker, brings a kitchen sink authenticity to the proceedings, along with a cast of famous powerhouse performers, who manage to disappear into their roles. Tough stuff, but not to be missed. Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher). Bonuses: Commentary by Daniels; Featurettes; Interviews with Sapphire and Daniels; Deleted scene. Widescreen. Dolby 5.1 surround.

Chicago – Ondi Timoner introduces the subject of her award-winning documentary “We Live in Public” by saying “This is the story of the greatest internet pioneer you’ve never heard of…” and, for the most part, she’s right. Josh Harris is a fascinating and arguably deranged gentleman who basically prophesized and created the virtual lives most of us lead on Facebook, Twitter, etc. The doc about him is riveting viewing that may stumble a little bit in its final act deification of its subject matter but is still a must-see for doc fans or simply anyone wondering how the hell we got here.

DVD Rating: 4.0/5.0

Timoner’s film became the first work to ever win the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 (after her excellent doc “Dig!” took the same prize years ago). It’s easy to see why the Park City, Utah crowd...

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right Here for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

We Live In Public - DVD Review

There’s a moment in We Live In Public (Now out on DVD) in which Josh Harris, an Internet wunderkind who saw the convergence of our online and everyday lives meshing long before any of us delighted in the joy of broadband service, makes an underground lair. Now, as founder of Pseudo.com, one of the very first sites to ever make video on the Internet available in the late 90’s, he wanted to push the sociological and psychological boundaries of what we would consider voyeuristic.

Have you ever thought about putting your entire life in front of the public with literally nothing held back? Well, dot-com entrepreneur Josh Harris did just that; and his rise and fall is chronicled in the documentary, We Live In Public. This documentary is a must see for anyone involved in the online world, whether you run a website or connect with your friends on Facebook and twitter.

Read more on Giveaway: Win @IndiePixFilms’ We Live In Public on DVD…...

Tonight, director, producer, entrepreneur Ondi Timoner takes her mission to self-distribute her provocative feature doc We Live In Public -- winner of 2009's Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize (which she won the year before for her challenging rock-doc Dig!) -- to multiple venues throughout the country. Star Adrian Grenier hosts tonight NYC screening in club Arena and there will be live streaming at: weliveinpublicthemovie.com. In addition, Chicago will host a 24-hour recreation of Josh Harris' infamous and ground-breaking "Quiet" bunker -- he curated and funded an underground bunker in NYC where over 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. The Chicago bunker will feature live performance pods, including fire throwers, trapeze artists and celebrity DJs. Then the film will be released worldwide, cross-platform, via digital (iTunes), VOD and DVD (available...

More Spring Preview: [Theatrical Calendar]

[Repertory Calendar]

[Jason Reitman's Favorites]

Over 85 films will be filing through arthouses and multiplexes between now and the end of April, but nearly triple that number will be accessible from the comfort of home, whether it's on demand, online or on DVD. Here's what will be hitting televisions, computer screens, Netflix queues and store shelves this spring.

On Demand

Once you get through the masterful six-hour "Red Riding Trilogy" currently available on demand through May, IFC Films and their Sundance Selects label have quite the collection of festival favorites available to beam directly onto your TV in the next few months. It starts on February 17th with the Festival Direct release of the acclaimed John Bryant comedy "The Overbrook Brothers," about two siblings who find out they're adopted, as well as the Sundance Selects release of "Flannel Pajamas" director Jeff Lipsky's multi-generational comedy "Once More With Feeling," starring Chazz Palminteri as...

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...

Some of the best documentaries of 2009 hardly seemed to exist. "What's the matter with Kansas," based on a best-seller, is still awaiting its fifth vote at IMDb. "The Beaches of Agnes," a luminous film by the New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda, grossed $127,605. "Of Time and the City," by a great British director, grossed $32,000. "Anvil! The Story of Anvil," a hit in terms of buzz and critical reception, brought in $666,659. "Tyson," $827, 046.

Such figures come from IMDb, which may be wrong, but if it's $1 million off, we're still not talking big numbers. What we're really talking about is eyeballs, or, as old Jewish exhibitors used to ask, "how many toochis on the seats?" The audiences for these films were found first at film festivals, and will now be found on DVD and video on demand. None

of them played more than one theater in Chicago -- five of them at Facets. Yet...

Channel 4 may have canceled Big Brother, but this week we resurrect the concept as we talk to Josh Harris, the subject of the recent film We Live In Public. As both an internet pioneer and Truman Show-style subject, we'll be finding out what drove him to film the lives of complete strangers and himself.

There's also a look at what the launch of Freeview HD - the first service to offer free high definition channels over the air, without a dish or cable installation - means for the UK.

On top of all that, we'll be asking you to send us your 2009 highlights and 2010 predictions - leave us your tech highlights of 2009 and what things you think will be big next year in the comments below. Finally, we'll discuss Tivo's return to the UK, as well as Bobbie's take on the latest in Gary McKinnon's legal battle, and details on...

By Ondi Timoner

I first embarked on making my film, "We Live in Public," a little over 10 years ago. It was another era in 1999: a time when modems made '80s synth screeches, many thought the internet was a passing fad and many major companies didn't even have the most basic of websites.

When I began documenting the social experiments of “Warhol of the Web," Internet bad boy, Josh Harris, I only knew I was documenting an eccentric innovator who spent his money in extraordinary ways -- building bunkers instead of buying house and cars like most millionaires. Certainl...

‘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,...

This blogger at SXSW - photo by John Biehler on Flickr

This erstwhile reporter is a big fan (+ 2X attendee & 1X presenter) of SXSW, the (almost legendary) music/film/interactive festival in Austin, Texas (though the locals will tell you “Austin ain’t Texas”).

I noticed the deadline is approaching for the film submission so i’ve compiled a few resources to help you figure out if this is the best place for your film - I’ve attended a few fests (including Sundance from 1991-3) but nothing is quite like SXSW if you are a fan of all sorts of arts, people and parties. You are guaranteed to get your mind blown one way or another ;-).

Get the SXSW Lowdown

First up, get to know SXSW’s Youtube channel with presentations, panels, concerts and miscellania (like Johnny Cash’s keynote song/speech from 1994) Also there are a playlist...

Ever wonder about how much people share their lives in social media these days? Believe it or not, someone was actively exploring those very possibilities long before the new millennium. Dig! Director Ondi Timoner brought her latest documentary, We Live in Public, to Austin for a special one-week engagement.

The film focuses on Josh Harris, a dot-com entrepreneur who was ahead of the curve, and a social media pioneer long before MySpace. Harris's story is the cautionary tale of a dot-com pioneer, but the story told here is much more. Harris didn't just have skyrocketing success only to crash in the dot bomb. Even his parties had ulterior motives.

Among his projects was "Quiet: We Live in Public," a social experiment where artists lived in a sealed community -- eating, sleeping and living with every action being recorded. There was no privacy of any sort, and every imaginable action was recorded,...

Last month, we introduced you to (or reminded you about) Josh Harris, once-upon-a-time internet entrepreneur and star of the award-winning documentary We Live in Public. Around the turn of the millennium, Harris was known for coordinating some pretty bizarre social experiments, like getting 100 people to live in a bunker under 24-hour camera surveillance. He then turned the camera on himself and his girlfriend, broadcasting their lives over the Web--which eventually led to his nervous breakdown. We Live in Public captures it all, illustrating Harris's rise and fall in a fascinating cautionary tale about our use of the internet. 

The movie opened in New York last month, and now that it's heading to the West Coast (premiering tonight in Los Angeles at the NuArt Theater), we thought it would timely to share with you Harris' plans for his next experiment--which he's currently pitching as a TV series. He calls it The Wired City,...

Look, it's really no big surprise how far we've let slip our right to privacy. What comes as something of a shock is how happily we've volunteered its erosion, cookie by cookie, behavioral analysis by behavioral analysis. Well, maybe one guy wasn't so startled: Josh Harris, founder in the '90s of Pseudo, the first Internet TV network, and explorer from the turn of the century onward into people's zeal for letting the world intercede on their lives, so long as the camera remained trained on them. In the documentary We Live in Public, director Ondi Timoner focuses on two of Harris' most prominent and controversial ventures: Quiet: We Live in Public, an experiment in which 100 people were shut into a Soho, NY basement with all the comforts of home, plus 24/7 surveillance, mandatory uniforms, communal sleeping quarters, fascistic interrogators,...

The Internet is good at many things, but one thing it's great at is selling future visions of itself -- speculation as reality. That's what went on in the dotcom boom, when a thousand what if? on-line gimmicks created a thousand virtual millionaires. And it goes on, too, in We Live in Public, a fascinating documentary that nevertheless partakes of a kind of visionary-hard-sell, cult-of-the-Internet, the-future-is-now cachet. The movie won this year's Sundance Grand Jury prize, but I confess that when I finally caught up with it just the other day, I found it at once resonant and naive -- often at the same time. We Live in Public wants to be a bold statement, but it's as much a hermetic product of its time as the hot-house Internet prognostication it traffics in. An opening title informs us that "this is the story of the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of,...

The Internet is good at many things, but one thing it's great at is selling future visions of itself -- speculation as reality. That's what went on in the dotcom boom, when a thousand what if? on-line gimmicks created a thousand virtual millionaires. And it goes on, too, in We Live in Public, a fascinating documentary that nevertheless partakes of a kind of visionary-hard-sell, cult-of-the-Internet, the-future-is-now cachet. The movie won this year's Sundance Grand Jury prize, but I confess that when I finally caught up with it just the other day, I found it at once resonant and naive -- often at the same time. We Live in Public wants to be a bold statement, but it's as much a hermetic product of its time as the hot-house Internet prognostication it traffics in. An opening title informs us that "this is the story of the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of,...

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...

Voyuerism sells!

More than a decade before ex hibitionist guests and staffers at the Standard Hotel created a sensation, there was Josh Harris, who became a multimillionaire catering to voyeurism.

His story unfolds in the documentary "We Live in Public," directed by Ondi Timoner.

Dubbed "the greatest Internet innovator you never heard of," Harris was the man behind an innovation called Quiet.

Set in an underground fortress somewhere in Manhattan, 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. It...

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,...

Documentarian Ondi Timoner makes some bold claims in her documentary We Live In Public, beginning with the statement that her subject, Josh Harris, is “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.” As one of the first people to realize the potential of the Internet, Harris made millions in the ’90s developing surveys, chatrooms, and streaming-video channels. Then he squandered it all on two large-scale art projects. In one, dubbed “Quiet,” Harris invited a group of New Yorkers to live in a fully monitored bunker with all their desires met and actions exposed; in another, called “We Live In ...

Documentary follows a Web entrepreneur-turned-artist, who might not be so likable, director Ondi Timoner admits.

By Eric Ditzian

Josh Harris in "We Live in Public"

Photo: Interloper Films

"No one will see," he says, trying to lure his girlfriend to bed.

She turns to one of the many cameras set up throughout their apartment, intended to broadcast every moment of their relationship on the Web, and says sarcastically, "Hello!"

This moment comes around the one-hour mark in Ondi Timoner's new documentary, "We Live In Public," about Web entrepreneur-turned-loony artist Josh Harris, and it perfectly captures both the smarts and the delusions of its star.

Harris became a millionaire during the dot-com boom, selling a tech consultancy business and starting an online television network called Pseudo.com. As the millennium approached, he became increasingly drawn to artistic endeavors, first staging a monthlong performance-art experiment in which 100 people lived in a...

“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d'etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and material recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ trouble ...

Editors Note: This interview was originally published as part of indieWIRE’s coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The film opens in theaters this Friday. Ondi Timoner’s documentary “We Live in Public” won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival - the second time Timoner claimed that honor after 2004’s “Dig!” The film examines the work of internet pioneer Josh Harris, who has spent his life …...

Editors Note: This interview was originally published as part of indieWIRE’s coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The film opens in theaters this Friday. Ondi Timoner’s documentary “We Live in Public” won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival - the second time Timoner claimed that honor after 2004’s “Dig!” The film examines the work of internet pioneer Josh Harris, who has spent his life …...

I'm not sure if the poster for Ondi Timoner's documentary We Live in Public is the first poster to feature quotes from Twitter, but it's definitely the first poster I've seen quoting @ names. I screened this film at Sundance, but never got the chance to write a review at the time. You can read David Chen's review and interview with Timoner here. Any techie will probably want to check this out. The film tells the story of Josh Harris, an Internet pioneer who was ahead of his time, and founded the Internet's first television network. But most interesting is the section where you learn about this project Harris curated and funded in an underground bunker in NYC where 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. Back to the poster, the quotes aren't really from random twitter users (for the most part). For example,...

This review was originally published as part of indieWIRE’s coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. “We Live In Public” is being released in theaters this Friday. According to documentarian Ondi Timoner, Josh Harris—the Internet pioneer at the center of “We Live in Public”—didn’t mind revealing the more twisted aspects of his web-fueled career. “I don’t care how you portray me,” he said, “as long as you make a great film.” …...

Josh Harris saw all of this coming. The ubiquity of the Internet, the reality-tv craze, social networking, the surging access to (and increasingly desperate chase for) fame -- all of it. In 1999, Harris was at the bleeding edge of the vanguard chronicled in We Live in Public, filmmaker Ondi Timoner's Sundance-winning documentary charting Harris's time spent as an early Web mogul run aground on the shoals of self-obsession. On one hand, Timoner was lucky: That self-obsession yielded thousands of hours' worth of videotapes for her project. But it came at a cost.

Ondi Timoner seems less interested in making documentaries than immersive experiences, something both at odds and in harmony with Josh Harris, the internet pioneer and the subject of her latest documentary, "We Live in Public." A man who claims his best friend growing up was his television, Harris made his millions by creating a web-based startup (Jupiter Communications) and selling it to Prodigy in the '90s before spending money "like it's sand through the fingers of time" on a Big Brother-esque bunker in New York where people volunteered to have their every movement captured on video.

Timoner was invited to bring in her own camera, and even after Harris' bunker descended into chaos, she tagged along for his subsequent venture, a 24/7 webcam of his life with his then-girlfriend Tanya at WeLiveinPublic.com, and his unexpected life after the dot-com bubble burst. As Alison Willmore noted in her review on Indie Eye,...

The 2009 Hot Docs lineup has officially been announced and I'm extremely excited. For one, this will be a good opportunity to catch up on many of the films I missed at Sundance. Also, I'm currently not working, so I will have all of free time to dedicate to the festival. Nice. Luckily, there's a shit ton of movies that I'm interested in, so it won't be hard to fill out my schedule (It never really is). I've posted some crucial picks below, but you can also check out the full schedule for yourself over at the Hot Docs website [1]. What are you looking forward to this year? Objectified [2] Directed by Gary Hustwit [3] From telephones to toothpicks, nearly everything that fills our world is designed. Objects look and work the way they do because someone made them that way. Director Gary Hustwit examines industrial design's sweeping cultural impact with the same...

• We are getting closer to mid-March, some would say Sundance feels like yesterday's news and SXSW begins today. But not so fast. There are some well-hyped titles that have yet to be picked up and accordingly to our chart below there either are some oversights on the part of some distrubs and/or some tough negotiations on the part of the sellers. I originally wanted to get this grid up right after I was over and done with the festival, and now with the first slew of titles upon us, I thought it might be time to get this thing together. I asked fellow critics Comingsoon.net's Edward Douglas, Cinemablend.com's Josh Tyler, Slashfilm.com's Peter Sciretta and FilmSchoolRejects.com's Neil Miller to share their thoughts by grading the films they screened. Note: I only included the titles that were seen by at least two critics, which meant that

...

It can be frustrating to hear great buzz about a new film and then realize that you have to wait weeks, months, or even years, to see it yourself. Why not transform that frustration into satisfaction by watching the filmmaker's earlier work?

That was my thought as I checked SnagFilms to see what titles they're highlighting for free streaming this week. Ondi Timoner's lastest documentary, We Live in Public, generated good buzz at Sundance in January, prompting James Rocchi to write: "She's crafted a incisive, exciting and thought-provoking examination of the ways our new chances to live in public both make and mar the way we now live." (He also interviewed her along with her subject, Josh Harris.) I'll have to wait to see that one, but in the meantime, I decided to check out her earlier doc, Dig!

Filmed over a period of seven years, Dig! charts the...

SXSW is one of my favorite festivals of the year as it showcases some of the best and most innovative real independent films, and with this host of world premiers, it's also playing alot of Sundance material as well as genre fare from all over the world, many of which we've covered heavily in these pages.

From the Sundance lineup, we have films like Moon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, You Won't Miss Me, Grace, and Humpday, among others.

For the world genre material we've covered, there's Lake Mungo, The Square, Zift, and Awaydays.

I think you get the point that lots of great looking film will be playing. I'll leave a bit of the exploration to you..

Lineup after the break.

Narrative Features Competition

Artois the Goat

Director: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle Bogart

Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest...

We Live in Public won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize on Saturday night. That’s a big deal. I saw last year’s winner Man On Wire on the final day of the 2008 festival, so I was pretty psyched to see this movie on my snowy, final Sunday in Park City. Cut to me 90 minutes later: disappointed, confused. What the fuck? I’m not saying the film’s terrible or uninteresting. It’s just not all that impressive. What was all that hype about? We Live in Public follows the life and career of 90s Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris. Harris made millions as the founder of Jupiter Communications and CEO of online television network Pseudo.com, but then poured all his resources into bizarre and very public “art projects” that capitalized on voyeurism and the yin to its yang, exhibitionism. First came the unsettling 100-occupancy New York City...

The Sundance Film Festival has always been a great showcase for some of the best docs of the year, and though we didn't have time to see many of them, we knew we couldn't miss Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public , an amazing portrait of Joshua Harris, an internet pioneer unlike any other. Often called the "Warhol of the Web," Harris approached the coming of the internet like a work of art, being the first to institute much of the technology that is so commonplace nowadays. His company Pseudo.com was one of the first to stream live video, and Harris used the money from that to forge an experiment called "Quiet," essentially a basement bunker where dozens of New York artists and others lived while being filmed 24 hours a day. Harris followed this with a more...

According to documentarian Ondi Timoner, Josh Harris—the Internet pioneer at the center of “We Live in Public”—didn’t mind revealing the more twisted aspects of his web-fueled career. “I don’t care how you portray me,” he said, “as long as you make a great film.” Yet it’s precisely because she portrays Harris on the basis of his accomplishments that she has managed to make a great film, albeit a flawed one. Harris …...

According to documentarian Ondi Timoner, Josh Harris—the Internet pioneer at the center of “We Live in Public”—didn’t mind revealing the more twisted aspects of his web-fueled career. “I don’t care how you portray me,” he said, “as long as you make a great film.” Yet it’s precisely because she portrays Harris on the basis of his accomplishments that she has managed to make a great film, albeit a flawed one. Harris …...

Chicago – The 2009 Sundance Film Festival Awards were announced on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 and Lee Daniels’ examination of parental abuse and self-redemption in Harlem in the 1980s, “Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire,” won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the U.S. dramatic competition.

“Push” tells the story of an embattled teenageer living in 1980s Harlem.

Photo credit: Sundance/Variety “We Live in Public” won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary. The Chilean film “The Maid” by Sebastian Silva, won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema. The audience award in World Cinema went to “An Education” by Lone Scherfig. The film recounts a 16-year-old girl’s adventures in early ’60s London.

Other winning documentaries besides Ondi Timoner’s look at Internet pioneer Josh Harris were “Rough Aunties” by Kim Longinotto, which won the World Cinema docu grand jury prize. The doc focuses on...

Mariah Carey can finally put Glitter behind her. Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, starring Mariah, Paula Patton (wife of R&B singer Robin Thicke), newcomer Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'nique, took home the top prize for U.S. dramas at the annual Sundance Film Festival last night in Park City, Utah. Set in 1980s Harlem and focused on the struggles of an abused teenaged girl, Push also received the audience award while Mo'nique was recoginized for her performance as the abusive mother. In U.S. documentaries, We Live in Public about Internet pioneer Josh Harris won the grand jury prize. The audience award went to The Cove, an exposé on the controversial killing of...

"Push," Lee Daniels' adaptation of performance poet Sapphire's novel about an abused, illiterate teenager struggling to break free from her hellish homelife in Harlem, was the big winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, picking up both the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, with star Mo'Nique earning a Special Jury Prize for Acting. Ondi Timoner's film about dot-com golden boy Josh Harris "We Live in Public" snagged the Documentary Grand Jury Prize, while in the World category, Kim Longinotto's "Rough Aunties" and Sebastián Silva's "The Maid" were given awards. The complete list of awards follows:

The Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Documentary was presented to "We Live in Public," directed by Ondi Timoner. The film portrays the story of the Internet's revolutionary impact on human interaction as told through the eyes of maverick web pioneer, Josh Harris, and his transgressive art project that shocked New York.

“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d'etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with hi ...

“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d'etre, and also his achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale. A quick-cut pileup of stock footage, video captured by Timoner over a decade on Harris’ trail, and footage recorded during his surveillance projects, Public outlines Harris’ troubled childhood and tricky relationship with hi ...