BlackBerry - Herzliya Cinematheque

Friday | 2.10 | 21:00 | Herzliya Cinematheque

Director: Matt Johnson
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson
(120 min., English; Hebrew subtitles)

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled an invention that would change the world: the iPhone—a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, and an internet communications device, all in one. But until that moment, it seemed that the future belonged דווקא to the BlackBerry.

This witty and moving film tells the story of the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of the world’s first smartphone, through the three men behind it: a technical genius with no social skills, his conscientious friend, and a sales shark who promises to turn them into millionaires.

The story is true, but in the hands of director and actor Matt Johnson, it becomes a melancholic, funny, and charismatic comedy about friendship, ambition, and the remarkably short distance between inventing the future and turning it into the past.

In the spirit of David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network, behind the story of technology that changed the world lies a deeply human story about the people who believed they controlled the revolution—until the revolution moved on without them.