LUMPENPROLETARIAT—A new documentary film has been made available on the Netflix video streaming service (apparently yesterday).  It’s called Killswitch (2016)—not to be confused with the 2008 Steven Seagal action flick.  Netflix doesn’t tell us who directed it.  But Wikipedia does; it also tells us Killswitch was actually first premiered back in October of 2014 at the Woodstock Film Festival.  The documentary film is a collaboration between director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeffrey Horn, writer Christopher Dollar^[1] and Akorn Entertainment.^[2]  True to the spirit of the film, in 2015 the filmmakers worked with Congressman Alan Grayson to sponsor a Killswitch film screening on Capitol Hill February 25th for interested members of Congress.

At the 2014 Woodstock Film Festival, the documentary film

won the James K. Lyons Award for Best Editing of a feature documentary.^[3]  Then, the film made its international debut, playing alongside Citizenfour at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in November 2014.^[4]  In 2015, it screened on Capitol Hill, as well as film festivals on four continents (Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America).^[2][5][6]  The tech world has been excited by democratic presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig’s role in the film.  Kathy Gill of GeekWire writes, “Killswitch is much more than a dry recitation of technical history.  Director Ali Akbarzadeh, producer Jeff Horn, and writer Christopher Dollar created a human centered story.  A large part of that connection comes from Lessig and his relationship with Swartz.”^[7]  On September 13, 2016, Killswitch was released on iTunes movies; and, within 24 hours, it was trending as a Top 5 on their documentary page.

This looks interesting.  Let’s check it out.  You can watch it on Netflix, like me, or on other platforms or formats.

Messina

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Killswitch trailer uploaded to YouTube by Chris Dollar on January 27, 2015

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[14 DEC 2016]

[Last modified at 16:24 PST on 17 DEC 2016]