Killswitch

This pro-hacktivist treatise raises a profusion of subjects, including the tragic fate of the whiz kid Aaron Swartz who battled against the Stop Online Piracy Act, the reason why Edward Snowden is a hero, and the Internet cowboy Kim Dotcom, a shining example for online freedom. But there’s more: the Big Brother bogeyman government that’s reading all our Facebook posts (which we rashly entrust to that brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg – who is actually a hacker through and through, in case you didn’t know), the stranglehold of the terms of agreement imposed by online businesses, and how net neutrality is in serious danger now that corporate giants are set on creating an information monopoly. The victims of these Internet power games are regular users and, when you think about it, democracy itself. Director Ali Akbarzadeh alternates interviews with academics with clips from secondary sources, such as Edward Snowden’s 2013 interview with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. This collage-style manifesto urges viewers to take action for the right to free information and reuse – something described by one of the speakers as today’s most pressing civil rights issue, comparable with the struggle for women’s voting rights at the start of the 20th century and for racial equality 50 years later. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)