My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva

SubmarineChannel presents the first documentary, entirely shot online within Second Life:

Several documentaries have been made about Second Life, but now there’s a film that actually takes place insíde this popular virtual world. In the film ‘My Second Life’ the main character sets out on a journey and the viewer tags along.As more people are spending more time in virtual worlds – for entertainment, friendship, work – these worlds are becoming the field of work for documentary filmmakers.

In ‘My Second Life’, director Douglas Gayeton examines what it means to lead a virtual life, and in the process uncovers some of the mysteries that still exist about our contemporary day and age.

My Second Life
In January 2007, a man named Molotov Alva disappeared from his California home. Recently, a series of seven video dispatches by a Traveler of the same name have appeared within a popular online world called Second Life. In these dispatches Molotov Alva encounters everything from Furries to Cyberpunks to Neo-Luddites to Sex Slaves to the King of the Hobos, Orhalla Zander, who becomes Molotov’s guide as he searches for the creator of their brave new world.

Filmmaker Douglas Gayeton came across these video dispatches and assembled a documentary in seven episodes, with a total length of 35 minutes. SubmarineChannel will release these episodes on several distribution channels. The

first episode is now online at: http://www.molotovalva.com

My second life is part of the Minimovies series of SubmarineChannel.

Minimovies

My Second Life is the first Minimovie in a sequence of eight different documentaries, specially produced for online video channels (You Tube, Google Video, etc.), Ipod and mobile phone. Each documentary will be released in series of episodes. All documentaries will be shown on a special Minimovies website, which will be launched April 2nd.

Douglas Gayeton wrote and directed, together with William Gibson, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’, the first interactive cd-rom based movie, for Sony Imagesoft. His digital animated series ‘Delta State’, was named best animated TV series of the year at the

2004 Annecy Film Festival. Gayeton has also created or designed online social networks for such clients as AOL, MSN, Vivendi and Napster.

SubmarineChannel is a digital channel, focusing on the boundaries between popular culture and media, art and digital culture. From digital magazines to broadcasting and even festival programming – it showcases the most engaging productions to date. SubmarineChannel targets the new generation of creatives, offering a unique stage for their work to be shown, a fertile ground for new projects and collaborations to be established.

SubmarineChannel.com is part of the Amsterdam production company Submarine, established by Bruno Felix and Femke Wolting, and came about with financial support rom The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science & The Department of Social Development, City of Amsterdam. This is a SubmarineChannel production in co production with VPRO and Vrij Nederland Magazine.