SOPHIA
→ SOPHIA
(2022)
Screening Time
8:45 pm
Screening will be followed by a conversation with filmmakers Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle and Roll Call’s Jason Dick.
SOPHIA chronicles David’s pursuit to create empathetic robots that can help solve some of humanity’s most pressing issues. For him, Sophia is more than a machine. She offers deep connection, and a glimpse at what the shared future between AI and humans might look like.
As he works tirelessly in his lab, shaping Sophia’s lifelike face and building her intelligence, pressures from the outer world are growing. When his mother’s health takes a turn for the worse, and investors begin to question his vision, David’s unwavering belief in Sophia is all that stands between him and failure. With time running out and resources dwindling, will David and Sophia find their place in the world?
Produced by Bits Sola, Jon Kasbe, Crystal Moselle, Tim Nash, and Sally Campbell. Executive Produced by Vinnie Malhotra, Dan Cogan, and Jenny Raskin.
Courtesy of Showtime Documentary Films.
/Filmmakers
Jon Kasbe
Director
Jon Kasbe is an Emmy Award-winning Australian-Indian director and cinematographer. His debut feature, “When Lambs Become Lions,” was a 2017 Sundance Documentary Fund recipient, won Best Editing at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, and was nominated for two 2019 IDA Awards in Best Cinematography and Best Editing. The film was released theatrically across the United States by Oscilloscope Laboratories and is now available on Apple TV and Amazon. His short films have screened at festivals worldwide and been recognized by SXSW, Hot Docs, Webbys, Vimeo Staff Picks, Camerimage Film Festival, Sheffield Film Festival, and National Geographic. In 2018 he was selected for DOC NYC’s inaugural 40 Under 40 list. He is currently developing a new film in Concordia Studios Artist-in-Residence.
Crystal Moselle
Director
New York based director Crystal Moselle is a storyteller of both documentary and narrative fiction films.She is best known for her Sundance, Grand Jury Prize award winning documentary, “The Wolfpack” which was later distributed by Magnolia Pictures. Crystal discovered the Angulo brothers who were the subjects of the documentary on the streets of New York. In the past she worked on short form projects with publications such as The New York Times, Vice and Nowness. After the success of Wolfpack she met a group of female skateboarders on the train, who would become her main collaborators and subjects on three projects. The first was a narrative short “That One Day” which she produced in collaboration with Miu Miu and saw its premiere at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. Shortly after that they expanded the film into a feature, which Crystal co-wrote and directed named after the infamous group “Skate Kitchen”, which premiered at Sundance 2018 and was later distributed by Magnolia to critical acclaim. In the same year, Crystal was nominated for the Breakthrough Director Award at the Gotham Awards for her direction of the film. The third collaboration is the HBO series “Betty”.
/Moderators
Jason Dick
Jason Dick is CQ Roll Call’s editor-in-chief and the host of its Political Theater podcast. He has served in a variety of editorial roles with CQ and Roll Call, and prior to that was editor of National Journal Daily. He has also worked as a screener for the South by Southwest Film Festival. A native of Arizona and a resident of Capitol Hill, he served in the AmeriCorps program in West Virginia and was a college instructor there as well. He also taught high school in Arizona, on the Navajo Nation.