IPHONECHINA
If Apple were a state, would you rather want to live in Apple or in China?
The promises of neoliberalism are not necessarily fulfilled on the market. Answers to the crisis of capitalism are materialized in goods. These are realized in design and personalized by people like Steve Jobs or Deng Xiaoping.
Plausible answers to the current state of the world might be an Iphone and the existence of the uber-productive state of China.
In Milton Friedman’s words: "Governments never learn, only people learn. Society doesn’t have values, people have values." Here, the mastermind of neoliberalism specifies the paradigm shift from society to the individual.
IPHONECHINA, the new documentary essay film by Christian von Borries, is not another film about Apple or about China. By comparing two epitomes of the world, it turns out that software might be a new form of governance. But on the ground, there is real desire and real exploitation.
"We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!"
It was not a chinese politician who said this. This quote was taken from an Apple commercial in 1984.
The question is, if a company is part of society, or if nowadays states act like companies. high tech and low pay is today’s business and world model.
The film was shot in Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, New York, New Caledonia, Bordeaux, Hamburg and Berlin. All this was supported by various organisations.
We are asking you to contribute for covering the cost of montage, sound mastering and color correction.
Christian von Borries made two feature films so far, THE DUBAI IN ME and MOCRACY. Both were shown on film festivals all over, and both were awarded prizes at FIDMarseille and Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg. You can find them online, here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xeqym3_the-dubai-in-me-christian-von-borri_shortfilms
and here:
http://video.yandex.ru/users/masseundmacht/view/1/?ncrnd=2592
