“…[The FUTURESTATES episode Plastic Bag] from Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo) featuring the mad/brilliant German director as the voice of a fluttering bag is just too good to miss.”
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“[FUTURESTATE's Plastic Bag] is a really endearing film. I was not expecting to care about a tattered piece of plastic with handles, but by the end of it, I did.”
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“As she explored the family’s secrets, [filmmaker Monika Navarro of Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas)], edited them into a film that reflects the frailties of every American family.”
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Greg Pak's Mister Green, created for ITVS's FUTURESTATES, is a parable about change.

When you think of public television in the United States, science fiction, or any type of fiction, may not spring to mind.

Independent Television Services (ITVS) is trying to change that perception by creating a series of 11 fictional mini-features on American society in the not-too-distant future. Launched March 8 as an immersive destination website to be available for free via streaming video with subsequent distribution on pbs.org, FUTURESTATES feautres directors such as Greg Pak (Robot Stories) and Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo) thinking into the future while staying tethered to current events. The series dropped down on the South by Southwest and San Francisco International Asian American film festival this past month, and after viewing two of the mini-features at an event held at the Jellyfish Gallery in SOMA sponsored by Next American City magazine and ITVS, I sat down with FUTURESTATES programming manager Karim Ahmad to talk about the forward-thinking initiative.

SF360: You mentioned something at the event launching the series about only having the filmmakers project a little bit into the future, not going 100 years from now but more so 10, 15 into the future.

Karim Ahmad: Well, there’s definitely some variance from film to film. One film Plastic Bag which was directed by Ramin Bahrani . . . you follow a plastic bag as it goes home with its ‘maker,’ the woman who takes it home from the store. It lives with this woman for a period of months until it gets thrown away eventually. And then it goes to a landfill where it’s buried for years and years, an unforeseeable amount of time. And then when it finally becomes free . . . .

Read the full interview on SF360.org >>

The new online fictional series from ITVS represents a huge innovation for public media. Check out the New York Times story below to learn more about the creative concept behind the series and what makes it so unique.

Also, be sure to watch FUTURESTATES today by visiting http://www.futurestates.tv and tell us what you think!

For Web and Public TV, Brief Films That Dramatize Issues

By Elizabeth Jensen
March 7, 2010

ITVS is best known for its financing of documentaries, many of which appear on PBS’s Independent Lens series. But beginning on Monday, the organization will present a series of brief, fictional films that cast social issues into the future, in the hopes of drawing a younger audience not necessarily interested in public television.

The new films, 11 in all, will appear first on the Web, and later move to broadcast. Their subjects will be familiar to those who watch ITVS-financed documentaries: climate change, immigration and exploitation of the poor, among other social issues. Under the series title FUTURESTATES, the films will give fictional treatments to the same kinds of subjects, some with a science-fiction twist, exploring how those issues can play out in the future.

The films, which run about 15 minutes each, are meant to attract a diverse audience of so-called millennials, young adults in their 20s and 30s, as well as filmmakers in that demographic group, said Sally Jo Fifer, the president and chief executive of ITVS. Fiction is “what they’re working in,” said Ms. Fifer, and online is where to reach them, ITVS executives said. “We wanted to get that demographic in the public media family,” Ms. Fifer added.

Congress created ITVS, which stands for the Independent Television Service, in 1991 to support independent voices in the media landscape, and finances it through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. ITVS has supported a handful of nondocumentary films in the past, but has largely found the cost of feature-length work prohibitive.

Moreover, PBS broadcasts little fictional programming with the exception of Masterpiece Theater, said Matthew Meschery, ITVS’s director of digital initiatives. “There’s very little, if any, distribution opportunity for narrative films on broadcast for public television,” he said.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting paid the $522,000 in development and production costs of FUTURESTATES, which can be seen starting on Monday at futurestates.tv. In about a month, after a screening at the South by Southwest festival, the films will be available on PBS.org. ITVS is exploring distribution via mobile devices and other online outlets as well, Mr. Meschery said, in addition to their eventual broadcast.

ITVS had 42 submissions for the first round of grants. Among the winners were Plastic Bag from Ramin Bahrani, about the life of a bag (narrated by the film director Werner Herzog); Mister Green, from Greg Pak, about global warming; Tent City, by Aldo Velasco, about an eviction officer grappling with the moral implications of his job; and Silver Sling, from Tze Chun, about a world where impoverished immigrants sell their bodies for use in chemically accelerated surrogate births.

The films, which run about 15 minutes each, are meant to attract a diverse audience of so-called millennials, young adults in their 20s and 30s, as well as filmmakers in that demographic group, said Sally Jo Fifer, the president and chief executive of ITVS. Fiction is “what they’re working in,” said Ms. Fifer, and online is where to reach them, ITVS executives said. “We wanted to get that demographic in the public media family,” Ms. Fifer added.

Watch FUTURESTATES today >>

X (Anthony Giangrande) is created as a robot in the story-within-a-story in Tent City by Aldo Velasco.

The wait is finally over!

Today, ITVS launched FUTURESTATES –– a brand new online fictional series that explores many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow.

Each of the 11 episodes are available for free on the series website www.futurestates.tv and will be available on pbs.org in April. FUTURESTATES will also have its theatrical premiere at South by Southwest on Sunday, March 14.

ITVS worked with some of today’s best and emerging indie filmmakers to complete the 11 films for the series. Contributors include acclaimed American director Ramin Bahrani, whose mini-feature entitled Plastic Bag is narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, Greg Pak’s Mister Green and Tze Chun’s Silver Sling.

What life might look like in America in the decades and centuries to come?

Watch FUTURESTATES and find out >

A surrogate (Diana Masi) looks at her new scar in Tze Chun's Silver Sling.

What will life look like in America in the decades and centuries to come?

On Monday, March 8, ITVS will launch FUTURESTATES –– a new online fictional series that represents a huge innovation for public media.

Each of the 11 episodes will be available for free beginning March 8 on the series website www.futurestates.tv with subsequent distribution on pbs.org. FUTURESTATES will also have its theatrical premiere at South by Southwest on Sunday, March 14.

Have your own predictions for the future? Be sure to tell us on the “Predict-o-Meter,” a unique feature on the FUTURESTATES website where you can submit your own predictions about life in the future, and comment on the predictions of others. Think you know when the ice caps will melt? Know when we’ll elect our first female president? Will the rainforest rebound or disappear? Share your predictions with us on Monday.

Are you as excited as we are? Then you won’t want to miss the extended series trailer below!

Join the FUTURESTATES Facebook Fan Page >>

Bookmark the FUTURESTATES website and visit on Monday >>

Beginning March 8, ITVS will launch a new online fictional series called FUTURESTATES, which will explore many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow.

The series will be accessible exclusively online and be available for free. ITVS worked with over 20 of today’s best and emerging indie filmmakers to complete the 11 films for the series. Contributors include acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani, whose mini-feature entitled Plastic Bag is narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, Greg Pak’s Mister Green and Tze Chun’s Silver Sling.

Can’t wait until March 8? Watch the video preview below. Also be sure to join the brand new FUTURESTATES Facebook Fan Page to watch more video previews and to get the latest news on the series.

Join the FUTURESTATES Facebook Fan Page and watch other clips >>

Beginning March 2010, ITVS will launch a new online fictional series called FUTURESTATES, which will consist of 11 mini-features each 15 minutes in length, created by independent filmmakers. These short narrative films will explore many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow.

ITVS worked with over 20 of today’s best and emerging indie filmmakers to complete the 11 films for the series. Contributors include acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani, whose mini-feature entitled PLASTIC BAG is narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, Greg Pak ‘s MISTER GREEN and Tze Chun’s SILVER SLING.

Initially, the series will be accessible exclusively online via ITVS’s redesigned website (launching in early 2010) and be available for free—via streaming video—on the new site’s enhanced broadband video player.

Integral to ITVS’s production of the series is the development of online engagement activities with interactive features and opportunities for viewers to express their own ideas about life in the decades and centuries to come. ITVS has been collaborating with AFI’s Digital Content Lab in designing some of the interactive features to accompany the series, including a crowd-sourced timeline of past and future events. FUTURESTATES brings together several key components of ITVS’s strategy for a sustainable competitive public media.

“We know that fewer and fewer people are watching programs through traditional appointment viewing. By combining online viewing with a shorter-format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist, we are going to new reach audiences with programs that inspire and inform,” says Sally Jo Fifer, ITVS President and CEO. “And of course, we are keenly interested in making FUTURESTATES available for public television broadcast down the road, and we aim to bring new audiences with us.”

Subscribe to Beyond the Box blog to get updates on FUTURESTATES >>

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“Filmmaker Werner Herzog lends his voice to Ramin Bahrani’s lovely 18-minute whirlwind, PLASTIC BAG. It’s one of the 11 films that make up FutureStates, a new series commissioned by The Independent Television Service (ITVS).”
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