In The Emoji Story, Directors Martha Shane and Ian Cheney lead viewers 👀 on a deep dive into the ever evolving world of picture characters, from their humble beginnings in Japan 🇯🇵 to mobile keyboards 📱 the world 🌎 over, and shed fresh light 💡 on the Unicode Consortium 👥, which approves new emoji offerings and the individuals fighting ✊ to make the language more representative of its billions of users.
The rapid rise 📈 of emoji is a global 🌍 phenomenon without precedent. Their widespread use has prompted difficult questions 🤔 about the creation of a language and digital communication’s fraught ties 😣 to identity and inclusion.
Since the documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival as Picture Character, it has gone on to screen across five continents.
After watching, join producer Jennifer 8 Lee at the festival for a Q&A about her work with Emojination on 16 March at 18:00 CET. Register via the festival schedule.
The film is available to watch at anytime throughout the festival
We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after Mozfest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, The Emoji Story provides an engaging, conversational starting point for understanding the role that technology companies — specifically in Silicon Valley — have in the representation of communities across the diversity of the world. While society often emphasizes the importance of representation of the Big Screen of Hollywood, The Emoji Story movingly explains the power of representation on the Small Screen, on mobile devices that billions of people hold in their hands every single day.
We plan on partnering with teams like Adobe to develop Diversity and Inclusion in technology material to be distributed as a curriculum for technology companies and educational institutions.
Jennifer 8. Lee is an emoji activist, documentary producer, a former New York Times reporter, and CEO of Plympton, a literary studio that innovates in publishing.