FUTURESTATES: A New Online Fictional Series

What might life look like in an America of the future? Beginning March 2010, ITVS will launch a new online fictional series called FUTURESTATES, which will consist of 11 mini-features each 15 minutes in length, created by independent filmmakers. These short narrative films will explore many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow. ITVS worked with over 20 of today’s best and emerging indie filmmakers to complete the 11 films for the series. Contributors include acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani, whose mini-feature entitled PLASTIC BAG is narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, Greg Pak ‘s MISTER GREEN and Tze Chun’s SILVER SLING. Initially, the series will be accessible exclusively online via ITVS’s redesigned website (launching in early 2010) and be available for free—via streaming video—on the new site’s enhanced broadband video player. Integral to ITVS’s production of the series is the development of online engagement activities with interactive features and opportunities for viewers to express their own ideas about life in the decades and centuries to come. ITVS has been collaborating with AFI’s Digital Content Lab in designing some of the interactive features to accompany the series, including a crowd-sourced timeline of past and future events. FUTURESTATES brings together several key components of ITVS’s strategy for a sustainable competitive public media. “We know that fewer and fewer people are watching programs through traditional appointment viewing. By combining online viewing with a shorter-format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist, we are going to new reach audiences with programs that inspire and inform,” says Sally Jo Fifer, ITVS President and CEO. “And of course, we are keenly interested in making FUTURESTATES available for public television broadcast down the road, and we aim to bring new audiences with us.” Subscribe to Beyond the Box blog to get updates on FUTURESTATES >>