Picturehouse DOCS presents…

ERASING DAVID (Cert TBC)

Thursday 29 April, 8.30

Plus satellite Q&A hosted by Will Self, with director David Bond, David Davis MP, composer Michael Nyman, Phil Booth of NO2ID and Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty

UK 2009. 80 mins.

Few documentary films manage to pull off the feat of being both entertaining and informative, but ERASING DAVID succeeds. Leaving his pregnant wife at home in London, director David Bond takes his camera on the run, trying to evade capture for 30 days from private investigators hired to track him down.

Trawling through social networking websites and state and commercial databases, and utilising mobile phone tracking technology, the investigators are soon hot on the trail, probing into the most minute details of David’s family life. With the film demonstrating the staggering amount of information about our lives available in the public domain, notions of a surveillance state suddenly seem all too real.

As the hunt closes in the pressure takes its toll, and David’s attempts to avoid capture become ever more extreme. ERASING DAVID is an edge-of-the-seat ride, probing at the paranoia seeping into the very heart of UK society.

After the screening join us in a debate about civil liberties and surveillance hosted by Will Self and beamed live via satellite. Panel members will include ERASING DAVID director David Bond, director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti, MP David Davis, who famously resigned his seat in protest against National Identity Cards (only to win it back again), Phil Booth of NO2ID and composer Michael Nyman. Questions can be submitted on the night via text message.

Ritzy Podcast Erasing David Interview by Picturehouses