Boulder International Film Festival: Closing Night Awards & Film: The Social Dilemma

Join us to fete the filmmakers and award the best of the fest!

Enjoy a tasty brew of bohemian swing—an intoxicating, toe-tapping mash of gypsy, twang, gospel and soul from Half Pint & The Growlers, followed by the BIFF Awards Ceremony where we’ll honor the best of the fest with their handcrafted Vielehr award sculptures.

6:30 pm: Doors Open (6:15 pm for Pass holders)

6:15 pm – 7:15 pm: Music by Half Pint & The Growlers

7:15 pm: Awards Ceremony

7:30 pm: Screening of The Social Dilemma

Q & A after the film screening by Ron Bostwick featuring Director Jeff Orlowski, Producer Larissa Rhodes and team.

Tickets are $35 (plus service charge)/ FREE for Passholders

The Social Dilemma

A powerful exploration of the extreme impact that a relatively small number of engineers in Silicon Valley have over modern-day society, The Social Dilemma deftly tackles concepts like technology addiction, social engineering and surveillance capitalism and makes them visceral, understandable and urgent. Through a unique combination of documentary investigation and entertaining narrative drama, award-winning filmmaker and Boulder’s own Jeff Orlowski (Chasing Ice, Chasing Coral) once again reveals the invisible in a manner that is both enlightening and harrowing.

In The Social Dilemma, Orlowski disrupts the disrupters by unveiling that search engines, networks, instant information and the like are merely tools to lure us in. Once we’re hooked, the real commodity they sell is their ability to influence and manipulate us. The film features stunning interviews with high-profile tech whistleblowers, including Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology; the co-inventor of the Facebook “Like” button, Justin Rosenstein; and Tim Kendall, former president of Pinterest and former director of monetization at Facebook. These are coupled with compelling narrative segments—including a cunning performance by Vincent Kartheiser (“Mad Men”)—that illuminate the very real consequences these seemingly innocent technologies can have on our everyday lives.

Directed by Jeff Orlowski

Produced by Larissa Rhodes

Co-Produced by Daniel Wright and Stacey Piculell

Written by Vickie Curtis

Music by Mark Crawford

Q&A by Ron Bostwick with Jeff Orlowski, Larissa Rhodes and other team members after the film