RiP: A Remix Manifesto

The San Francisco Film Society's acclaimed SF360 Film+Club returns with a special edition, double-barreled mash-up program featuring the documentary RiP: A Remix Manifesto directed by Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor and a live set by mash-up VJ legends Eclectic Method.

RiP explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the pied piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s former Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow also add their perspectives to the mix. Creating a participatory media experiment from day one, Gaylor shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP, Gaylor and Girl Talk invite an impassioned dialogue about current copyright, fair use and intellectual property laws and make a deeply provocative case for the ideas of Free Culture. Which side of the ideas war will the viewer line up on?

RiP will be preceded by a short video produced by Creative Commons that explains their aims, methods of work and services for the promotion of creative sharing and ease of copyright use.

After the screening, Adrian and Mysterious D from Bootie SF will open the live program with a mash-up DJ set and then Eclectic Method will present a live set of video mash-ups that are sure to boggle the mind and move the booty.