The Story

What links the security of your smartphone, the disappearance of an innocent citizen for a tweet, and the sudden rise of Manchester City Football Club? This film explores the United Arab Emirates as a gleaming laboratory of high-tech progress and global investment, shadowed by authoritarian control. Through the story of Ahmed Mansoor—engineer, poet, and human rights advocate—this film reveals how visions of digital futures coexist with surveillance, info wars, and silenced dissent. Tracing flows of capital, disinformation campaigns and the disempowerment of citizens, the film exposes how Mansoor’s persecution – and the hacking of his iPhone – signals a broader threat to privacy, freedom, and citizens everywhere.