Happy holidays!
As the end of the year approaches and journalists compile their best-of-year (and best-of-decade)  lists, we’ve been excited to see WE LIVE IN PUBLIC get a lot of nods from various people who *clearly* have excellent taste.   One of our favorite reviews from the past year came from legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who gave us a four star review in October.  We are thrilled to be a part of his year-end round-up of the best docs of 2009, alongside some other amazing docs including TYSON, THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, and ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL.

“Josh Harris… was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life… Filmmaker Ondi Timoner was on the scene from the start… Fascinating.”

Have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve and we’ll catch you next year!

We are hot off an excellent run at the London Film Festival and we are eagerly anticipating our UK theatrical release on ***25 screens*** on November 13th.  In the meantime, we have an excellent bit of press in The Guardian.  Check out our feature!

“[Josh Harris] is walking ahead in order to show us where we’re going – and what we’ll look like when we get there.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/04/josh-harris-we-live-public

We are honored that Variety chose We Live In Public to be part of a special screening series.  They hosted us in New York recently and brought us to the Arclight in Los Angeles last night.  We had packed houses and amazing crowds — thanks Variety!

Check out this post-screening interview by Variety from our New York appearance:

And one starlet from last night’s screening was so spooked by our cautionary tale about living in public, she couldn’t resist tweeting about it .  Thanks Tia!

As WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tours around the world, we are racking up tons of great press and blog attention.  Big kisses to the Windy City and Canada for all of the recent love, and we are excited by the media response in the UK that is just starting to roll in as we gear up to play the London Film Festival…

National Public Radio / WBEZ
Eight Forty-Eight Reviews We Live in Public

“Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the attention… but things started going odd with Josh Harris… Ondi Timoner’s documentary focuses on a man through whom we can see the profound socio-cultural transformation wrought by technology in the last several decades.”

The Globe and Mail
Vancouver Int’l FIlm Festival 2009 Reviews

“[Josh Harris'] personal social skills are negligible, but his vision of society has been spot on.”

Chicago Sun-Times: Review by Roger Ebert

“This is a remarkable film about a strange and prophetic man. [FOUR STARS]”

Chicago Reader

“[Timoner] uses her access to create a frightening portrait of a man whose technological genius fails to compensate for his gaping emotional deficits… CRITIC’S CHOICE”

Chicago Tribune

“Here’s a cautionary tale for the virtual campfire… Timoner’s film offers a ton of surface flash and a hard-driving editing rhythm… provocative.”

Canada.com

“…a provocative and compelling examination of dot-com millionaire Harris and his cutting-edge art projects that attempted to plumb the profound differences between our understanding of private and public space.”

The Review List

“Provocative doc about ‘the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of’… Ondi Timoner has followed him for 15 years, in good times and bad, and returned with a portrait of a genius/eccentric/screwball who left it all to grow apples. For Harris, the brave new world is behind him. Four stars.”

Stop Smiling

“Documentarian Ondi Timoner stormed Sundance in 2004 with Dig!, her chronicle of rockers The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It won her the Grand Jury Prize — a feat she repeated in 2009 with We Live in Public, her take on privacy in the Internet age, as told through the lens of Web entrepreneur and artist Josh Harris.”

The Times (UK)

“The documentary maker Ondi Timoner specialises in portraits of charismatic, dynamic and dangerously deluded characters…”

EFilmCritic
VIFF ‘09 Interview with Ondi Timoner

“Timoner: Since our premiere at Sundance this year, we have had such a passionate response to the film; spawning debates that last for hours. People write and say they cant sleep or have been up for days. I say the film could be billed as a horror movie…”

Three Cheers for Darkened Years! Film Articles by Witney Seibold

“We Live in Public” is fascinating, raw, amusing, and… fascinating to look at.”

prePoSTeRoUS

After the film ended, Director Ondi Timoner addressed the audience and asked the following question, “are we losing our individuality and creativity through the internet?”… Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop off the grid or anything, but thanks to the thoughts provoked by this movie, I am going to try to do more things that none of you will see.

MovieSet Dailies

“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, who left a wake of alienated and estranged relationships when he left the map at the end of his fall…. Provocative.”

Gen X Reflects

“Mind-boggling… Run to this movie!”

Electric Sheep

“Ondi Timoner’s excellent documentary We Live in Public offers a fascinating insight into the way that living virtually through technology can affect our physical lives and our personal identities.”

Daily Freep

“Harris was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life.”

Curtis Andersen Super Blog!

“Following [Josh Harris'] life and those who were affected by it and his projects, is shockingly self affronting and made both Rene and I re-examine just why we interacted with social media the way we do.”

And these two recent reviews made our last press round-up but deserve another shout-out!

Vancouver Sun
VIFF Reviews include the stunning documentary, We Live In Public

“(Critic’s Pick) Watching the social network short-circuit and the entire fabric of civility shred before your eyes can be very compelling, and Timoner doesn’t miss a syncopated beat in this detailed study of public personality, and the self denied… Timoner captures the blurry line between who we really are, and what we pretend to be.”

Wired
Smart We Live in Public Probes Web Genius’ Hubris

“Disturbing… [Timoner] captures the de-evolution of optimistic arty types into semi-deranged test subjects… Imminently watchable.”

We are so excited to be opening in CHICAGO at the incredible Music Box theater.  Our run begins Friday October 16th and director Ondi Timoner and star Josh Harris will be on-hand for a post-screening Q+A after the 7:30pm show on opening night.  Tickets went on sale today and believe it or not, we are well on our way to being sold out for opening night, so don’t dilly dally.  We will be at the Music Box all week.  If you want to purchase tickets in advance, you have to call the theater.  We recommend it!
Music Box Theatre |  3733 N. Southport Ave.  |  Chicago, IL 60613  | Showtimes: 773-871-6604   Office: 773-871-6607

If you can’t be at the opening night talk with Ondi and Josh in the flesh,  Our friends at i3 Media are sponsoring a live webcast of the discussion!  Check out weliveinpublicthemovie.com at around 9pm CST (7pm PST) on Friday October 16th and then stick around to see more action as the webcam crew heads off to our Chicago premiere *party*.

A ticket stub gains you entry into the afterparty, which is at the AAA building in Wicker Park.  We are rocking it out with free drinks from our friends at 42 Below Vodka, a video-enabled photobooth and an all-around raging time that promises to be a full-on “We Live in Public Experience”.

In addition to the Music Box run, the i3 Media gang is hosting a special preview screening on October 15th, open to the public.  Ondi and Josh will be there in person for a webcasted post-screening Q+A, so if you can’t be there to catch it live, you don’t have to miss out on the fun.  The event is located at:
11 W. Illinois, 4th Floor (top buzzer)

Thursday, October 15th
doors at 7:00
show is at 7:30
webcasted Q&A at 9:00 CST  — tune into weliveinpublicthemovie.com

BUY TICKETS HERE

We are having a great run in Austin and San Francisco.  Check out some of the love we’ve gotten!

Austin Chronicle “Ondi Timoner, who also directed the now-classic rocker doc DIG!, makes a bold and trenchant argument, via Harris’ pseudomorphically perverse life, that we are all now “slaves to little boxes,” and it’s true, Tweetpeeps, isn’t it? [FOUR STARS]”

San Francisco Bay Guardian “Fascinatingly addictive, this follow up to Timoner’s cult classic Dig! (which won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004) follows the bi-polar exploits of Internet pioneer Josh Harris. This man predicted every single step of the internet and the jaw dropping footage of his “experiments” are here to prove it. In 1999 he created a quasi-cult community in the basement of New York, in which people were given pods to sleep in, free food, drugs, and all night raves while every move was being recorded and shared. Even now, the uncompromising footage has the power to warp the viewer into his Orwellian vision of the future. But wait — that’s not all: Harris then goes on to rig 32 motion-sensor cameras in his house, creating the first website to stream his and girlfriend’s every life moment. I can’t express enough how awesome this film is, or how horrifyingly revealing of where our own society has headed.”

Run and get your tickets, Chicago, don’t walk!  See you there!