Directed By: Martha Shane & Ian Cheney
Documentary Feature
USA, 80 minutes
The rapid rise 📈 of emoji (Japanese for “picture character”) is a global 🌍 phenomenon without precedent. Their widespread use and ability to convey complex messages have not only cemented emoji’s place as an emerging digital language 🗣, but prompted difficult questions 🤔 about the creation of a language and digital communication’s fraught ties 😣 to identity and inclusion. In PICTURE CHARACTER, Directors Martha Shane and Ian Cheney lead viewers 👀 on a deep dive into the ever evolving world of picture characters, from their humble beginnings in Japan 🇯🇵 to mobile keyboards 📱 the world 🌎 over, and shed fresh light 💡 on the private consortium 👥 that approves new emoji offerings and the individuals fighting ✊ to make the language more representative of its billions of users.
Festivals & Awards:
Tribeca Film Festival
Hot Docs
AFI Docs
Woods Hole Film Festival
Traverse City Film Festival
preceded by:
All The Possibilities… 
Directed By: Louis Cherry & Marsha Gordon
Cast: William H. Dodge, Georgann Eubanks, Roger Manley, Huston Paschal, Radmila Sazdanovic, Larry Wheeler
USA, 16 minutes
All the Possibilities… gives viewers a unique experience of Vernon Pratt’s mesmerizing and massive work of art from the level of the smallest square to the over 1,400 square foot painting as a whole. With a percussive score inspired by the painting’s mathematical formulas, All the Possibilities… immerses viewers in Pratt’s world of systematic abstraction, a symphony in black and white.
Festivals & Awards:
San Francisco Indie Fest – Best Doc Short
River Run Film Festival
Indy Film Fest