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SEE MORE FILMS: THE SERIES

The Future is Humane series looks at how complex social constructs, such as empathy and fairness, are critical to social balance. It’s part of what makes us humane.

Social scientists and neuroscientists are using increasingly more sophisticated electromagnetic brain imaging techniques and designing more complex experiments in behavioral laboratories, to probe deeper into the mechanisms of social interaction. We meet these visionaries, capture their ideas and film their experiments.

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THE PRICE OF FAIRNESS

77 mins | 2017

Why do we accept huge levels of inequality and social injustice? This is one of the central questions that The Price of Fairness sets out to answer, beginning with a surprising set of social experiments in Norway, which suggest that our willingness to support systems of inequality is far greater than we are often prepared to admit. In Atlanta, we take a different look at fairness, from the perspective of a group of capuchin monkeys.

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In Costa Rica and Iceland we see how whole economies have been engineered to function with greater ‘fairness’, and the U.S. where systematic racial injustices have tested many of their citizens hopes for a fairer justice system. From the caste-based villages of India to the race-sensitive streets of Ferguson, Missouri, this documentary explores our understanding of fairness and what it takes to change an unfair system. Touching on issues of economic, political, racial and gender inequality, this film offers a thought-provoking and timely look at what fairness really means to us.

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LOVE, HATE AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

58 mins | 2014

The second film in the series explores the role of empathy and its extraordinary relevance in today’s increasingly interconnected world. Empathy is what allows us to connect with one and another and form a cohesive society. Drawing upon the work of psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, neuroscientists Vittorio Gallese and Simone Shamay-Tsoory, futurist Jeremy Rifkin, and numerous other experts and researchers, this documentary analyzes empathy as it explores its extraordinary relevance in today’s increasingly interconnected world.

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Topics include the anthropological roots of empathy; empathy-nurturing educational programs in schools; the effects of hormones on the development of empathy; the spectrum of psychopathy; “us vs. them” and “in-group/out-group” mentalities; the suppression and reawakening of empathy in strife-torn regions such as Israel, Bosnia, and Rwanda; the “bystander effect”; mirror neurons; “sensitive artificial listeners”; and social entrepreneurism in a technology-facilitated empathic civilization. Immensely thought-provoking. An important film that is particularly applicable to the disciplines of social, biological, educational, and forensic psychology; neuroscience; social philosophy; and sociology.

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Love, Hate and Everything film

JUST TRIAL AND ERROR  

63 mins | 2009

Consciousness defies definition. Perhaps no aspect of the mind is more familiar or puzzling than consciousness and our conscious experience of ourselves and the world. The film aims to understand why we are so interested in consciousness; most of us are interested as a result of our personal experience – we have consciousness, we experience it; perhaps we even think that we ”are” it.

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But, if we are to make progress in understanding consciousness, we will have to think about it clearly and engage in serious constructive dialogues. In an attempt to understand consciousness, director Alex Gabbay invites sculptor Antony Gormley, eminent neuroscientists Prof Brian Butterworth and Dr Beau Lotto and internet entrepreneur Twain Luu – whose study of the ‘global brain’ makes fascinating reading – to explore its meaning and how it affects their area of work. In an attempt to understand consciousness, director Alex Gabbay invites sculptor Antony Gormley, eminent neuroscientists Prof Brian Butterworth and Dr Beau Lotto and internet entrepreneur Twain Luu – whose study of the ‘global brain’ makes fascinating reading – to explore its meaning and how it affects their area of work. Structured in a non-linear way, the four protagonists present insights on the human brain, global consciousness, the role of the internet, perception, the space art occupies, etc. While the subjects weave in and out of each other to create the arguments, each interviewee has his or her own narrative arc. Set against a lingering score by Wajid Yaseen and witty use of visual material, the film flows like ‘a stream of consciousness’, unfolding its own narrative from captivating interviews. Just Trial and Error is an engaging, thought-provoking film.

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