Director: Sonja Lindén

Region: Finlan

Year of Production: 2011

Running Time: 91min

With the world at our fingertips, does technology make us freer? Amidst all the hurry and worry of the modern information society, are we happier? These are the core questions of Finnish filmmaker Sonja Lindén’s contemplative look at our wired existence.

Our communication habits have changed drastically in the past 20 years. As the pace of technological innovation accelerates daily, expectations intensify in the workplace, where hectic multi-tasking and 24/7 availability are the norm. Lindén also notes how our relationship to movement has changed; it is now possible to live a life entirely sitting down.

But while the sedentary nature of playing video games results in spine problems for some young people, a computer mouse stuck to the forehead of a disabled woman has given her a new independent life. How does machinery affect our physical, emotional, and mental well-being? How can we rediscover a balance between our natural rhythm and the rapidly escalating demands of modern society?

Beautifully shot and poetically paced, Five Star Existence was selected for International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam’s Competition for Feature-Length Documentary. Lindén’s sensitive, nonjudgmental treatment of these questions creates a heavily thought-provoking cinematic essay on the intertwining of machine and human being

Documentary Films Competition Grand Jury Prize SIFF 2012

Grand Jury Prize (Best Documentary), Seattle International Film Festival 2012

Best Future Watch, Documentary Edge Festival (New Zealand) 2012

Sonja Lindén is an independent filmmaker, producer and director, who graduated from the Department of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design (University of Arts and Design Helsinki) and the Helsinki School of Economics. She established Avanton Productions in 2006. Her work includes No Man Is an Island (2006), Gacaca—Awaiting Justice (2003), Breathing (2002) and Steps on the Yoga Path (2000).