Secrets of Silicon Valley (2001)

SECRETS OF SILICON VALLEY is a shocking exposé of the hidden downsides of the Internet revolution and also a funny and moving meditation on America's love affair with technology. Told without narration, the film chronicles a tumultuous year in the lives of two young activists grappling with rapid social change and the meaning of globalization on their own doorsteps. Magda Escobar runs Plugged In, a computer training center in a low income community just a few miles from the epicenter of high-tech wealth. Silicon Valley's skyrocketing rents and increasing evictions are driving out the people she is supposed to serve, but Magda struggles to find Plugged In a new home and receives unexpected help from President Clinton and Hewlett-Packard. Raj Jayadev is a temporary worker who confronts the hype of Silicon Valley by revealing the reality of an unseen and unacknowledged army of immigrant workers. Hired by the world's largest temporary agency, Manpower, Inc., to work in a Hewlett-Packard assembly plant, he is laid off when he organizes other "temps" to challenge health and safety conditions. But Raj finds surprising and funny ways to take the controversy to the Internet, the public and the press. Throughout the film, high tech CEO's and moguls comment on Magda and Raj's stories with revealing insights on time, technology, greed and globalization. Part MODERN TIMES, part BLADERUNNER, this is the first and only film to take a critical look at the social impact of the new millennium's high technology.