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Social media is abuzz with reactions to a first look at a new documentary from Everything Everywhere All at Once and Moonlight producers A24, called You Can See Everything.
Made in secret over three years, the film premiered at Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on Sunday, with a screening so mysterious that audiences didn’t know what it was until they were sat in the room ready to watch it, according to the LA Times.
Not only that, but the outlet reports that cinemagoers were required to lock their phones in pouches and were warned that security guards wearing night-vision goggles would be keeping an eye out for anyone using devices.
The film is about the disgraced American businesswoman Elizabeth Holmes.
Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
Holmes was the founder of the former health technology company Theranos, which specialised in blood-testing and was once valued at $9 billion.
She made headlines when she was found guilty on four counts of wire fraud in November 2022.
What did she do?
Holmes was subsequently sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Theranos faced problems in October 2015 when Wall Street Journal reporter John Carryrou published an article claiming the company had been forced to use conventional blood testing methods in its research, because its own technology – known as Edison – was producing inconsistent results.
Carryrou later discovered the tech was nowhere near ready for use.
Come March 2018, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Holmes with fraud for taking more than $700 million from investors while advertising a false product.
The lawsuit was settled by Holmes, who surrendered voting control of Theranos and was handed a $500,000 fine and a ban on holding an officer position in a public company for 10 years.
She was indicted by a federal grand jury in June 2018 on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, before being found guilty in November 2022.
Holmes’ defence attorney Kevin Downey told jurors his client “believed that she built a technology that could change the world” and “went down with the ship when it went down”, while assistant US attorney Jeffrey Schenk told them Holmes “chose to be dishonest with her investors and patients. That choice was not only callous... it was criminal.”
Her sentence has been shortened a few times, and her projected release date is listed as August 16, 2032.
The scandal was the subject of a 2022 biological drama series on Hulu called The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried and based on the ABC Audio podcast of the same name.
Who is Billy Evans?
Hotel heir William “Billy” Evans is Holmes’ husband, who met her at a charity event in San Francisco in 2017, around the time when Holmes was under investigation for defrauding the company’s investors.
They reportedly got engaged two years later, and they have two children: William and Invicta.
In a letter Evans wrote to judge Edward Davila ahead of his partner’s sentencing, he said he was “captivated by her childish wonder and authenticity”.
What is You Can See Everything about?
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Created by Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder and director Lance Oppenheim, the official description for the film reads: “Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.”
While Oppenheim is the director behind the upcoming Robert Pattinson-fronted film about Chris Hansen called Primetime, Fielder is known for “blurring the lines between reality and performance” in past projects, per The Independent.
Basically, it sounds like it’s going to be a bit weird.
When is the release date?
An exact date is yet to be announced, but You Can See Everything will be in cinemas in October.
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