Hollywood turns its gaze back to technology with 'Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain', directed by Alex Winter and opening on Oct. 26, 2018 at Cinema Village in New York City. Unlike most popular media portrayals of the crypto revolution, the film does not dwell on bitcoin's price or its alleged ties to criminal activity. Instead, it delves into the political dimensions of blockchain technology and why governments and big banks fear it.
Political Undercurrents: Disruption or Control?
Narrated by actress Rosario Dawson, the feature-length documentary touches on cryptocurrencies and mining, but its main focus is the socio-economic implications of blockchain. It highlights applications designed to help improve the lives of 'unbanked' refugees and individuals in countries like Venezuela that lack access to traditional financial services. The film argues that blockchain's decentralized nature could challenge existing power structures — a key reason for the controversy surrounding it.
The central narrative follows Lauri Love, a British activist and computer scientist accused of hacking into NASA, the U.S. Army, and the Missile Defense Agency to steal sensitive data. He faced potential extradition to the U.S. for his alleged involvement in online protests following the persecution and untimely death of Aaron Swartz. Love's story serves as a lens through which the film examines the tension between digital civil disobedience and government oversight.
Cypherpunk Bloodline
While Winter is best known as Bill from the 1989 cult classic 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure,' he has built a reputation as a documentary director. His previous works include 'Deep Web' (2015), about Ross Ulbricht and the Silk Road marketplace, and 'Downloaded' (2013), about the file-sharing phenomenon.
'I'm not a mathematician, or a cryptographer or a coder. I'm old enough to have totally come from the analog world, but became very involved and interested in the internet and technology in the '80s,' Winter said. 'I came to know a lot of people in that space like the cypherpunk community going back to the '60s and '70s, who had been trying to solve the problem that Satoshi, whoever Satoshi is, solved. I understood what the problem and solution were before I understood it as this thing called blockchain.'
Winter explained that he was drawn to Love because he likes to make films about people and technology. 'I think it creates a human face of the technological era we're in, which is very paradoxical. Love really represents the cypherpunks of today. He's brilliant, he's contradictory, he's contentious, he's not an easy pill to swallow. You may not like him — it's a question of how you respond to someone like that.'
Produced by Singulardtv, Trouper Productions, and Futurism Studios, 'Trust Machine' aims to move beyond the technology itself and explore blockchain's potential as a 'trust machine' — whether it can truly empower individuals or will be co-opted by existing systems. The answer lies in Love's story and the unfinished ideals of the cypherpunk movement.