Examined Life

"The unexamined life is not worth living." — Socrates

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets.

Philosophers have long done their best thinking when directly engaging with the outside world, not in isolation from it. Socrates roved the Athenian agora, courting trouble with the authorities. Rousseau immortalized his rambles through nature on the printed page. Nietzsche once said that only ideas conceived while walking have any value.

In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.

Peter Singer's thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue's posh boutiques. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and a friend stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture's fixation on individualism.

And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West - perhaps America's best-known public intellectual - compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be.

Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy's power to transform the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.

ASTRA TAYLOR – Director

Astra Taylor is a writer and documentary filmmaker. She holds an MA in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research and has been an instructor in sociology departments at the University of Georgia and State University of New York, New Paltz where she has taught classes on social theory, globalization, and the sociology of film.

In 2002 Astra was an Associate Producer on Persons of Interest, a feature documentary directed by Allison Maclean (Jesus’ Son) about the round up and detention of Muslims and Arabs in the aftermath of September 11th. The film was an official selection at the 2004 Sundance, Rotterdam, and Human Rights Watch film festivals and won the Amnesty International Humanitarian Award at the Chicago International Documentary Film Festival.

Astra then directed Zizek!, a feature documentary about the world’s most famous philosopher. The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, is distributed in North America by Zeitgeist Films and the Institute for Contemporary Art in the UK, and was broadcast on the Sundance Channel and in Europe.

One of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces to Watch” of 2006, Astra currently produces web-based video content for The Nation magazine, and is developing Megapolis, a documentary inspired by Mike Davis’ book Planet of Slums.

LEA MARIN – Producer

Lea Marin is an innovative producer and strong storyteller whose film credits include a wide range of short dramatic film, documentary series and features, including the MobiDocs and Mobile Stories anthologies. Most recently, she co-produced Astra Taylor’s Examined Life, which has its world premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Prior to joining the NFB in 2006, Marin produced the award-winning short film Escape, and was a line producer for Barna-Alper on the Discovery Channel series Mega Builders. Her production credits include the Genie-award-winning documentary Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the ’70s Generation, and the three-part series The Next Big Thing, produced in association with TV Ontario.

BILL IMPERIAL – Producer

Bill Imperial is a Toronto-based producer who has worked on documentary and music productions for Sphinx Productions since 2000. His producer credits include: Astra Taylor’s Examined Life (2008), Ron Mann’s Know Your Mushrooms (2008), Tales of the Rat Fink (2006), and Go Further (2003). Bill also co-produced the Juno Award winning DVD Blue Rodeo in Stereovision (2005) along with music videos for Two Hours Traffic and Luther Wright and the Wrongs. Before joining Sphinx, Bill worked with The Film Works as a producer, production coordinator and post-production coordinator on Witness To Yesterday (1998), The Arrow (1997), The Planet of Junior Brown (1997) and Lyddie (1996).

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