Cyber warfare, a topic that is at once oddly interesting and deeply unsettling, underpins Alex Gibney’s latest button-pressing documentary, Zero Days.
Peering into a world that is often masked by ones and zeroes, the feature is garnering a palpable buzz ahead of its festival circuit, and The Hollywood Reporter brings forth its chilling first trailer – one which showcases the devastating, morally-questionable effects of the Stuxnet computer worm.
Berlin International Film Festival is currently playing host to the film’s premiere, though before Gibney’s tech-savvy documentary made a beeline to Europe, Magnolia and Showtime had already snapped up distribution rights for the US, which really ought to give you an idea of the pedigree behind the lens.
THR pitches Gibney’s new work as so:
“Members of the U.S. and international secret services outline the dangers of cyber war as illustrated by Stuxnet, the computer worm, apparently developed by one or more nation states, that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program and reportedly destroyed up to a fifth of the country’s nuclear centrifuges.
But the Stuxnet incident is only the beginning, Gibney argues. Computer viruses designed to attack critical infrastructure — electrical grids, nuclear power stations, water treatment plants — are out there, and the systems of the U.S. are among the most vulnerable to attacks.”
If Mr. Robot offered up an astute (albeit fictionalized) portrayal of cyber infrastructure in modern times, Zero Days has enough gravitas to really drive home the point that, in the age of super-intelligence and AI, cyber warfare is an issue that will only grow in prominence as time – and technology – wears on.
Considering that Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine and Sinatra: All or Nothing At All each ruffled feathers in their own right, Zero Days is arriving hot on the heels of a strong year for the filmmaker, and it’ll be fascinating to see how the cyber warfare doc is received in the modern climate.
