Untitled CNN films DOCUMENTARY

CNN Films has launched a short documentary film series to debut this spring across CNN’s digital platforms, including CNN.com and CNNgo. The first of four short films in the lineup is The 414s: The Original Teenage Hackers, a film about the first teenage computer hackers, which CNN Films just acquired at the Sundance Film Festival.

Directed by Michael T. Vollmann and produced by Chris James Thompson, The 414s: The Original Teenage Hackers, examines the first widely recognized computer hackers, a group of Milwaukee teenagers who broke in to dozens of prominent computer systems including the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1983, and inspired the term “hacker.”

Other shorts slated for 2015 include an untitled project by director Joe Berlinger, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at how a New York supermodel rose to success; and Sarah Feeley’s Raising Ryland, which explores the transgender experience as lived by a 6-year-old boy and his parents. Future films will include projects from Andrew Jenks of MTV’s World Of Jenks and Roger Ross Williams, director of God Loves Uganda.

“This new venture into short-form documentary story-telling brings to fruition, our vision for a premium, multidimensional, film brand for CNN,” said Vinnie Malhotra, SVP Development and Acquisitions at CNN Worldwide. “CNN Films premieres have the ability to capture audiences across theatrical, broadcast, and now digital spaces.”