From convicted biotech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to tech tycoons Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, the marquee is dominated by headline makers who have stunned the world and markets with promises of innovation.

“These figures used to be more on the aspirational side,” Monica Castillo, film critic for pop culture website The AV Club, told AFP.

“He was a larger-than-life figure who built his way into billion-dollar companies and was seen as a hero who could change the world,” Castillo said.

“Then now… there’s a kind of disillusionment.”

Castillo said the world is now asking “hard questions” of its tech heroes, adding: “There’s a little more reflection because of what’s happened to this generation.”

Silicon Valley was once seen as a breeding ground for progressive-minded entrepreneurs, their politics running parallel to their innovative solutions.

But recently, many of the industry’s A-listers have switched allegiance to US President Donald Trump and his “America First” policies.

“Musk,” Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary about the world’s richest man, analyzes the South African-born chief of SpaceX and Tesla’s career from his beginnings as a tech genius to his alliance with Trump and the Republican Party.

Also in theaters is “The Social Reckoning,” the sequel to Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-winning 2007 film “The Social Network.”

This time, instead of tracing Facebook’s meteoric rise to fame, writer-director Sorkin tells the story of company whistleblower Francis Haugen and how he exposed some of its more nefarious practices.

One of them was how its algorithms increased hate speech by keeping users on the platform for as long as possible, and the dramatic consequences of that decision.

The films highlight how Musk and Zuckerberg amassed so much power that they were influencing US government policy, and how this reverberated around the world.

– ‘Horrible’ –

No one in Big Tech is viewed with a more skeptical and critical eye than Holmes, who once pioneered the biotechnology sector with Theranos, which pledged it could perform multiple medical tests using just a few drops of blood.

But the now-defunct company failed to succeed, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy, and his fall from grace is described in the acclaimed documentary “You Can See Everything.”

Holmes unexpectedly opened her home to co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim in 34 Days before going to a Texas prison to tell her story in her own words. They finally went inside.

The result of a strange blend of documentary and reality television is earning serious Oscar buzz.

Returning to the fantasy side, Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial” stars Andrew Garfield as OpenAI chief Altman, who changed the world with his generative artificial intelligence tool ChatGPIT.

Matt Neglia, editor-in-chief of the weekly audio and video show Next Best Picture, called the film “as entertaining as it is scary”.

Neglia said, “This is a brilliantly written human story about power, control, ambition and greed that may be the most relevant film of our time.”

– ‘Social Concerns’ –

For J.M. Tyree, professor of cinema at Virginia Commonwealth University and editor in chief of Film Quarterly, “Popular films always reflect these social concerns of the day.”

“Right now, people are really concerned about the concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals at the expense of the rest of the citizens,” Tyree told AFP.

He said people have lost faith in “billionaire tech moguls” and are beginning to see their flaws.

Tyree said, “It’s probably a common thread of these films, that they not only keep the money for themselves, but their product doesn’t seem to be very good for society either.”

This set of films attempts to showcase the tech giant, not its products.

In the process, Tyrie notes, the filmmakers show that unlike in the past, when captains of industry launched art museums and libraries, this generation is not as interested in philanthropy.

Castillo says the director appears to be seeking “some kind of accountability for all the harm” that these tech giants have caused society.

“The only way they can hit back is through their films,” he said.

PR/SST/PNB

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