Federico Pistono

For those who don't know Zeitgeist yet I suggest you to go and watch it: it' is a 2007 web film, produced by Peter Joseph, that presents a number of facts related to Christianity, the attacks of 9/11, and the Federal Reserve Bank, as well as theories related to those three topics.

I've heard of it many time and yesterday I've finally watched the DVD. This documentary received international acclaim as well as many criticisms, particularly from conservatives and religious extremists. The topics touched are certainly controversial, there are many (valid) interpretations of true facts and in-depth historical research, but for the time being I will not go into too much detail. This post does not aim to discuss the content of the work, in the future I will write a detailed analysis. What I want to do is analyse the methods used for the production and the distribution as well as the phenomena that this film has created. From a technical point of view it's really well edited and developed, the quality of the work surpasses by far all the other amateur UGC. However, it was released for free via Google Video and Torrent from the author. It is also possible to obtain a DVD full quality so that we can give the right retribution for the hard work he did.

Everything that is presented is supported by historical evidence, on the official website there is a long list of credits along with an interactive transcript where you can find links to the references while reading it. Images and clips are used under the Fair Use.

Zeitgesit has collected a wide range of fans, especially in the underground culture, so much that they organised a worldwide day dedicated to Zeitgeist, the Z-Day. The most valuable thing is that the aim of the film is the following:

Zeitgeist, produced by Peter Joseph, was created as a nonprofit filmiac expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are.

In other words it does not claim to have the truth in the pocket, it hopes that those who watch the film can develop a critical eye rather than accept a preconstructed reality. Just think about the opening from the Egyptologist Gerald Massey:

They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.

March 15,2008, an historic day. The Z-Day has 467 public events and 970 private events organised all over the World. Zeitgeist is the most seen documentary in Internet history, with more than two million hits per month, constantly on top of the list of most popular videos at google video. It's also been subtitled by volunteers in a dozen languages.