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History & Filmography of Screenlife

TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV

Visionary director Timur Bekmambetov is the pioneer of screenlife films and coined the term “screenlife.” His productions, “Unfriended” and “Searching”, were box office hits, earning $65 million and $75 million respectively against a budget of $1 million. The latest installment in the subgenre, Missing, grossed $48.8 million and topped the Netflix movie chart in the US last summer. Pioneering screenlife format has earned his production company Bazelevs a spot among the top 10 most innovative video companies in the world by Fast Company. Bekmambetov is currently directing a new Amazon MGM thriller Mercy starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson.

SCREENLIFE HISTORY

(excerpt from “Screenlife: How to Start Making Movies with Nothing but a Computer and a Story” by Timur Bekmambetov)

TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV:

“The year 2020 has changed the course of human history forever. COVID-19 and the ensuing global pandemic unleashed a whirlwind of change that swept through every corner of our lives. Quarantine measures sprouted like an unexpected storm, forcing individuals across the world into a state of self-isolation. In this newfound seclusion, we came to a startling realization – we were not merely users of the screens of our devices; we were inhabitants in them.

Although we had seen the contours of this emerging world before, with signs of this transformation, right in front of us on our computers, laptops, and smartphones. Back in 2015, Bazelevs, a film and TV production company based in Los Angeles, produced its first feature film, with all the action taking place on a computer screen. The movie was called “Unfriended.” It was later premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival, the world’s top gathering for horror and thriller genre movies, then picked up and released by Universal Pictures, becoming that year’s unlikely box office hit, grossing about $65 million on a $1 million budget. My name is Timur Bekmambetov, and I was the producer of this movie. Back then, I had a few blockbusters in the traditional vein under my belt: “Wanted” (2008) and “Abraham Lincoln: The Vampire Hunter” (2012). But I knew something was about to change in what we make movies about.

Today we spend more than half of our work and personal life on our devices. They bring us news, we fall in love, quarrel, lose, and find friends. Our online existence and our one in the real world are quite different. One could argue whether this is good or bad, but it’s hard to disagree that this is what the life of a modern person looks like today.

This book is the first step towards describing a unique phenomenon that I have pioneered. I called it “Screenlife” – “life on the screen…”

WHAT IS SCREENLIFE?

TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV:

“Screenlife is a storytelling format where all the action takes place on the screens of the heroes’ smartphones or computers. It is a new cinematic language, a truly modern way to reveal the inner state of the protagonist. Screenlife is a window into the protagonist’s inner world, destroying the fourth wall between spectacle and spectator, and radically changing the audience’s understanding of film.

In pursuit of innovative art, we continue to carry forward traditions, so there is no doubt that Screenlife inherits elements from traditional cinematography, but at the same time, it delves into and explores the digital world too. Imagine filming underwater, where the dynamics and laws of the body in space would present fundamentally different challenges and artistic choices. How much will dramaturgy, acting, camera work, and directorial decisions be affected in water? In Screenlife, we are dealing with a distinct physical environment, because the digital world lacks physicality, time, death, and gravity, with radically different rules of existence…”

SCREENLIFE FILMS & SHOWS

        MOVIES

Thomas in Love (2000)
The Collingswood Story (2002)
Skydiver (2010)
Megan Is Missing (2011)
V/H/S (2012)
The Den (2013)
Unfriended (2014)
Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)
Open Windows (2014)
Ratter (2015)
Face 2 Face (2016)
Searching (2018)
Missing (2023)
Profile (2018)
Livescream (2018)
Host (2020)
C U Soon (2020)
Spree (2020)
Dashcam (2021)
Safer at Home (2021)
R#J (2021)
#Blue_Whale (2021)
Language Lessons (2021)
Fresh Hell (2021)
Livescreamers (2023)
Stay Online (2023)
Resurrected (2023)
CTRL (2024)
Lifehack (2025)
Bloat (2025)


TELEVISION

"Connection Lost" (2015), e16s6, Modern Family
Sveta from Another World (2018)
Madness (Russian: Беезумие (2020)
"My Life as a Vlog" (2022), e12s34, The Simpsons

DOCUMENTARIES

Transformers: The Premake (2014)
Future History: 1968 (2018)
Watching the pain of the others (2018)
Clean with me (After Dark) (2019)
The Invention of Chris Marker (2020)
iBible: Swipe Righteous (2021)
Morning routine (2022)

MUSIC VIDEOS

Lupe Fiasco “Precious Things” (2023),
directed by Albert Figurt
Big Data "Dangerous" (2014)

WEB SERIES

The Scene (2004)
Web Therapy (2011)
Dead of Night (2019–2020), 2 seasons
Gameboys (2020)

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