Come Join Us In Person at the Players in NYC
for a Special Screening of
Digital Tsunami
A Film by Fred Peabody
The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the director, producer, and other participants. The event is free to attend, with a cash bar available for attendees. Registration is required for entry.
To watch the trailer on Vimeo click here.
This screening is sponsored by the
Institute of General Semantics
and co-sponsored by the
New York Society for General Semantics
and
Media Ecology Association
We are engulfed in a digital tsunami—a toxic mix of artificial intelligence, state and corporate surveillance and social media addiction controlled by powerful algorithms. DIGITAL TSUNAMI shows how these are all part of a digital ecosystem that is changing us as humans—just as the prophetic media guru Marshall McLuhan predicted 60 years ago.
“Director Fred Peabody (All Governments Lie, The Corporate Coup d’État) brings his signature journalistic rigour to timely examination of the ills of social media.… a chilling illustration of the pervasive nature that screens hold.”
—Pat Mullen, POV magazine
From the director, Fred Peabody: “After making ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE and THE CORPORATE COUP D’ÉTAT, I wanted my next film to be about the growing digital dystopia that is engulfing all of us. DIGITAL TSUNAMI is the film I came up with, and I believe it can make a difference. Like THE CORPORATE COUP D’ÉTAT and ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE, it documents injustice and societal harm being overlooked or underestimated because people are not seeing the big picture and historical context. It completes a trilogy of films bringing critical thought to crucial problems faced by society. Many of us are aware that if we don’t fix our planet’s natural, physical ecology, we’re doomed. Fewer people realize that if we don’t fix our planet’s 'media ecology' we may also be doomed. The good news is, we don’t have to be doomed. We can fix things. As I began researching this project, I was surprised to find that the famed 'media guru' Marshall McLuhan had warned of these problems back in the sixties, even though the press inaccurately portrayed him as a cheerleader for the electronic/digital revolution. If McLuhan were alive today, I think he’d say exactly what he said in 1966: 'The only alternative is to understand everything that’s going on, and then counter and neutralize it as much as possible, turn off as many buttons as you can, and frustrate them as much as you can...I don’t choose to just sit and let the juggernaut roll over me.'”
Filmmaker Bios:
Fred Peabody produced, wrote, and directed the Emmy-nominated 2016 feature documentary ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE and the 2018 feature documentary THE CORPORATE COUP D’ÉTAT. The films premiered at TIFF and HOT DOCS respectively, and received high ratings on ARTE, ZDF, and STARZ. ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE won the Directors Guild (DGC) Allan King Award for Excellence in Documentary. Fred is an Emmy-winning journalist and filmmaker whose credits include 7 years as producer-director at ABC 20/20 (where he won an Emmy and received 4 Emmy nominations), and 7 years as producer-director on the CBC investigative series The Fifth Estate.
Filmmaker, journalist, writer, Peter Raymont has produced and directed over 100 films and TV series during his 53-year career. His documentary feature, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire was honoured with the 2007 Emmy for Best Documentary and the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival. Raymont’s films are often provocative investigations of “hidden worlds” in politics, the media, and big business. Guantanamo’s Child: Omar Khadr (2016) was nominated for an Emmy and received three Canadian Screen Awards. Raymont was an Executive Producer, along with Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer of Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. He was the Executive Producer of, Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On which won the 2023 International Emmy for Best Arts Documentary and Unloved: Huronia’s Forgotten Children, which premiered at 2022 Hot Docs International Film Festival. Plastic People is his most recent documentary feature, which had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Festival.
.mp4)
Registration is free. All attendees must be registered in order to gain admittance to the club. This includes any guests you might want to bring with you.
The program will take place in the Dining Hall on the 1st floor of the club. Please note that, as an historic 19th century landmark, the site is not handicap accessible. Dress code is business casual and is strictly enforced, including no sneakers, shorts, ripped jeans, t-shirts).
