VPRO Backlight

Digital Amnesia

7 September 2014

This episode can only be watched outside The Netherlands Our memory is dissipating. Hard drives only last five years, a webpage is forever changing and there’s no machine left that reads 15-year old floppy disks. Digital data is vulnerable.
Wall Street Code

4 November 2013

A thriller about a genius algorithm builder who dared to stand up against Wall Street From the makers of the much-praised Quants: the Alchemists of Wall Street and Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box. Now the long-awaited final episode of a trilogy in search of the winners and losers of the tech revolution on Wall Street. Could mankind lose control of this increasingly complex system?
The Tax Free Tour

25 March 2013

"Where do multinationals pay taxes and how much?" Gaining insight from international tax experts, Backlight director Marije Meerman ('Quants' & 'Money & Speed'), takes a look at tax havens, the people who live there and the routes along which tax is avoided globally.
Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box

20 March 2013

Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box is a thriller based on actual events that takes you to the heart of our automated world. Based on interviews with those directly involved and data visualizations up to the millisecond, it reconstructs the flash crash of May 6th 2010: the fastest and deepest U.S. stock market plunge ever.
The Cleantech Future

20 March 2013

What if we could live in a clean world? A world in which energy would be 100% renewable, water no longer polluted, transportation truly green and production methods clean and regenerative? There will be such a world. In this documentary VPRO Backlight explores the unprecedented possibilities of a new industrial revolution: Cleantech.
The Food Speculator

20 March 2013

Assuming the role of a speculator, director Kees Brouwer tries to find out whether he is merely taking advantage of the opportunity offered to investors by the food scarcity, or that, through this abstract world of financial products, he is drastically interfering in poor people's lives.
Ten years of Backlight (Tegenlicht) in a globalising world

27 November 2012

A group of international Erasmus Mundus students visited Backlight in Hilversum to see how changing views on globalisation have been visualised in our documentaries in the past ten years.
Webspecial: Rebecca MacKinnon

25 May 2012

In her ongoing struggle to democratize the Internet Rebecca MacKinnon has earned her stripes. As a former CNN Bureau Chief and current director of Global Voices, she has undertaken various efforts to lift the worlds Internet users from virtual serfdom to citizenship. In this interview, MacKinnon talks to us about the importance of citizen media, internet surveillance in China and Russia and the implications of new laws that may restrict Internet freedom.
Goldman Sachs: the interview

18 February 2012

Backlight</i> recorded a telephone interview with Goldman Sachs PR chief Lucas van Praag. It caught the attention of the outside world - more specifically, the New York Times.

Holland Gets Talent

10 November 2011

Tegenlicht follows two young entrepreneurs to Shanghai where they have spotted a gap in the market and started an agency to select highly promising students in Shanghai for a research position in the Netherlands.

Aftermath of a crisis

19 September 2011

Shortly after the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008 sociologist Manuel Castells gathered a small group of international topintellectuals to ponder the crisis. While the crisis expanded, Castells named his group 'The Aftermath Network', a reference to the new world which according to him will emerge from the ashes of the crisis.

California Dreaming

8 November 2010

California is a strong brand, the state of new beginnings, dreams and movie stars, of surfers and a wonderful climate. But the Golden State is bankrupt and the city of Los Angeles is running out of cash. Public services are being cut and unemployment keeps rising. At the same time, optimism, entrepreneurship and the belief in the power of America are stronger than ever.

Tony Judt's Last Will

11 October 2010

On August 6 2010 Tony Judt passed away at 62 due to the complications of the neuro-muscular disease ALS. Judt was a historian specializing in post-war Europe. But above all he was a great thinker about the political landscape we inhabit. His last will was the lecture 'What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy', in the fall of 2009 in New York.

Debt and Redemption

4 October 2010

All over Europe, governments dressed up their accounts by buying exotic financial products from major investment banks. Then came the crash. Debt and Redemption shows how local authorities in Italy are struggling with the disastrous aftermath of their deals.

Caracas the informal city

19 May 2010

In this documentary Rob Schröder portraits the created self-built constructions of six million inhabitants who live in the informal conditions of the barrios in Caracas.

After Democracy

10 May 2010

Can democracy still be saved? Can we address the shortcomings of representative democracy - failing political parties, increasing distrust of government - within the current system or are we set to embark on a journey across a border where nobody ever dared to go? Should we explore a new political model in order to overcome the current multicrises? In After Democracy this urgent question is addressed by Fareed Zakaria, John Keane, Hilary Wainwright, William Dobson and Cheng Li.

Time for Change

22 February 2010

Meet the new revolutionaries of the Do-It-Yourself cultures in Barcelona, Tallin and Jakarta. They are modern day heroes. They do not wait for political parties or institutions to change their world; they simply do it themselves, by creating new local currencies, by working in social networks or by simply robbing the banks and redistributing their money

Quants. The alchemists of Wall Street

8 February 2010

Quants are the math wizards and computer programmers in the engine room of our global financial system who designed the financial products that almost crashed Wall st.

Quants > George Dyson

8 February 2010

Extra videos 'Historian among futurists'

Exit Afghanistan

18 January 2010

Documentary by Mariusz Pilis and Olaf Oudheusden in which warlords and diplomats question what the West actually wants in Afghanistan.