Pre-Crime

directed: Matthias Heeder, Monika Hielscher DE 2017, 1h 28m

Science fiction turns into disturbing fact as forecasting softwares, algorithms and databases quickly become the new fortune-tellers for future crimes, driving us to ask: how much are we willing to abandon for the sake of security?

The sci-fi film "Minority Report", in which crimes can be predicted, is reality: The method "Predictive Policing" predicts when and where a criminal will strike. The police computer is fed with personal information that we voluntarily disclose on the Internet every day. In Chicago, London or Munich, the police have long been working with the analysis of Big Data - the directors Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heeder traveled halfway around the world for their documentary film.

A software that predicts where and when a criminal will strike. And whether we are dangerous or not is already being decided by police computers. The method is called predictive policing and this promise of the future is not just a positive one. Big data serves as a source that we continuously fill with personal information ourselves. Where the film CITIZENFOUR ends, PRE-CRIME goes one step further. Directors Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heeder ask some of the most burning questions of our time: How much freedom are we willing to give up for the promise of absolute security? And can we really rely on the judgment of computers and algorithms? The film travels halfway around the world and introduces people who work with and further develop this technology on a daily basis. But also people who became the victims of this technology. PRE-CRIME shows that the future has long since caught up with us. Fascinating and frightening at the same time, utopian control scenarios are increasingly invading our lives...