Machine Kills
First time Keanu Reeves and director Alex Winter collaborate in 22 years in "Deep Web"
By GTVW staff
Photos Agency
Keanu Reeves has joined the anticipated new EPIX Original Documentary, Deep Web, as narrator. From director Alex Winter, the film chronicles one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century — the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the 30-year-old entrepreneur recently convicted of being ‘Dread Pirate Roberts,’ creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. This is the first time Reeves and Winter have worked together since 1993’s Freaked, which followed their co-starring roles in the successful Bill and Ted films. Deep Web will world premiere at South by Southwest this Sunday, March 15 and will make its World Television Premiere on EPIX Spring 2015. Content Media handles the film’s international sales and distribution.
Deep Web seeks to unravel a tangled web of secrecy, accusations, and criminal activity, and explores how the outcome of Ulbricht’s trial will set a critical precedent for the future of technological freedom around the world. The film features exclusive interviews with the Ulbricht family, including Ross’ parents Lyn and Kirk Ulbricht. Additional interviewees include: Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht’s lawyer; Andy Greenberg, technology writer for Wired, author of This Machine Kills Secrets and the first reporter to interview “Dread Pirate Roberts”; Cody Wilson, a crypto-anarchist known for his development of the “3D printed gun;” Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; James Chaparro, the former Assistant Director for Intelligence at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and Christopher Soghoian, a privacy and online security advocate who works for ACLU as their principal technologist.
Deep Web is an EPIX Original Documentary written, directed and produced by Alex Winter with Marc Schiller and Glen Zipper also serving as producers. Winter and Schiller previously worked together on the documentary Downloaded, about the rise and fall of Napster. Zipper’s prior credits include the Academy Award® winning Undefeated and the Grammy Award® winning Foo Fighters: Back and Forth. Seth Gordon (Print the Legend, Mitt, Freakonomics and Undefeated) is the executive producer, Andy Greenberg is the consulting producer, and Dan Swietlik (Sicko and An Inconvenient Truth) is the editor. Jill Burkhart and Ross Bernard are the executive producers for EPIX.