JustWatch

PressPausePlay

2011

Directed by David Dworsky, Victor Köhler

A Film about hope, fear and digital culture

The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunites. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.

Moby Ólafur Arnalds Lena Dunham Seth Godin Bill Drummond Andrew Keen Robyn Keith Harris Sean Parker Amy Phillips Hank Shocklee Apparat Lykke Li Al Doyle Mike Cosola David Weinberger Zach Hancock Christopher Weingarten Andre De Ridder Takafumi Tsuchiya Yasuhiko Fukuzono Andre Stringer Tracy Chandler Norman Hollyn Nick Sansano Hillary Rosen Anthony Volodkin Jonas Woost Anne Hilde Neset Show All…

Alternative Titles

프레스포즈플레이, Press Pause Play, 数位革命爱与恨

Genres

Music Documentary

Premiere

01 Mar 2011

USANR South by Southwest Film Festival

01 Jul 2011

Singapore A Design Film Festival

13 Oct 2011

Belgium Gent International Film Festival

Belgium

13 Oct 2011

Premiere Gent International Film Festival

Singapore

01 Jul 2011

Premiere A Design Film Festival

USA

01 Mar 2011

PremiereNR South by Southwest Film Festival

88 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Mike Harding ★★★½ 3

Technology and manufacturing have progressed to the point now where the tools for creating professional music and films are accessible, and affordable, to the general public. But the resulting democratisation of these creative endeavours may prove to be both liberating and terrible at the same time... With more people than ever trying their hand at it, what is the cultural cost of this new freedom of expression? Will it result in an eventual decline to the mediocre, or is this the start of a new surge in creative progression? Will true artists get lost in the noise?
These are some of the issues that PressPausePlay aims to tackle. Rather than being a one-sided affair, the documentary covers the current situation…
Review by Drew Crosby ★★★

To be honest I'm pretty mixed on the documentary PressPausePlay. Without a specific story to tell I found it very hard to focus on for the first half hour, and the amount of different perspectives on the progression of technology in relation to art left me with confusion as to what specific message the movie was trying to spread. Something about the lighting was oddly enough throwing me off the entire time too. It looks very cinematic but the coloring and shadows made the world feel so sorrowful. It just gave me this uneasy, negative feeling... Almost as if the movie was actively trying to get me to feel that technology has made the art world worse? And this is…
Review by marc115112 3

A documentary that makes some simple observations and shares some standard opinions.
Streaming Link.
Review by Chris Sansbury ★½

Documentary about a bunch of people who have somehow got high on their own self-importance. All I could think about was how terrible their come-down is going to be.
Review by Fiona

it’s crazy how outdated this movie about “the future of art and technology” already is. this predates Netflix and Spotify, instead they were referencing Napster lol
Review by ana isis ★★★★

making great things has never been easier, but getting them to matter has never been more difficult
Review by Karolina ★★★★

If honestly, this documentary was supposed to be just my homework for university, but I've never been more glad to see a film like this at the right moment of my life.
It's a must to see it for every single one studying or working in creative sphere. Somehow it opens your eyes. There's no significant plot nor life-changing moral, but I've realised how fast everything changes, how easily achieved everything became. Now art is nothing like it was 20 or 30 years ago. Revolution of culture is happening, but it took me around 60 minutes of this film to realise that it's happening right now, at the very moment, all around me.
Review by Eli ★★★

Before watching this, I thought the documentary was about video art only, but the film mostly discussed music. Video/film was in it as well, it was just a smaller portion than I had anticipated. The best part of this movie was the fact that they actually displayed the art they were talking about. You got to see a clip from Tiny Furniture when it was being discussed. You got to listen to Ólafur Arnalds' music when he finally got on stage. There were captivating little animations playing of the subjects people were discussing. While there's not a strong message in this documentary, there is a lot of art. I saw that this was only going to be on Netflix Instant…
Review by Marcin Wichary ★★★½

The revolution is happening in front of our eyes. It doesn’t feel like a revolution because it’s neither fast nor bloody, except… well, except it actually is.
Through interviews with artists and pundits, PressPausePlay looks at today’s world in which the creation tools and distribution channels for professional-grade books, music, and movies are for the first time available to almost everybody. Will this give us more art? Will this give us more garbage? Or maybe both? No one really knows, but it won’t keep us from guessing.
Production-wise, the documentary is impeccable. Fresh soundtrack, fantastic video and audio editing, gorgeous and stark design – in many ways this feels like a spiritual successor to Helvetica. But it’s a shame that after…
Review by Matt

I'll start with the negative. This documentary is all over the goddamn place. It relies solely on interviews to push arguments and a narrative, but fails to interweave the two in a clear manner. It's also trying to be very artsy and sexy, but those elements come across as distractive, mostly.
I don't agree with some of the arguments the interviewees were making either. For example, an author claiming the "industry is dead" because he was able to make more money off posting a novel online for free than he would have been able to had he properly published it. Dude, you're an author. With a name and some best-selling books published. Of course you're going to garner interest when…
Review by Luis_989 ★★

Honestly PressPausePlay is not a bad documentary, it just lacks of a certain depth because when the credits appear, we have learned almost nothing new.
Review by Alex Miller ★★★

I would recommend this to anyone doing creative work. It pushes the right buttons to make you feel inspired, and at times, angry. The best thing about this film (on a technical level) was the sound design combined with the editing/soundtrack-- very cool.

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Where to watch

PressPausePlay

Synopsis

A Film about hope, fear and digital culture

Cast

Directors

Producers

Editors

Cinematography

Executive Producer

Composers

Sound

Studio

Countries

Language

Alternative Titles

Genres

Releases by Date

Premiere

01 Mar 2011

01 Jul 2011

13 Oct 2011

Releases by Country

Belgium

13 Oct 2011

Singapore

01 Jul 2011

USA

01 Mar 2011

Popular reviews

Where to watch

PressPausePlay

Synopsis

A Film about hope, fear and digital culture

Cast

Directors Directors

Producers Producers

Editors Editors

Cinematography Cinematography

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Composers Composers

Sound Sound

Studio

Countries

Language

Alternative Titles

Genres

Premiere

01 Mar 2011

01 Jul 2011

13 Oct 2011

Belgium

13 Oct 2011

Singapore

01 Jul 2011

USA

01 Mar 2011

Popular reviews

Directors

Producers

Editors

Cinematography

Executive Producer

Composers

Sound