Doug Wolens is an American documentary filmmaker, writer and producer whose documentary films have touched on various issues from logging (

Butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

) to

transhumanism Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the human enhancement, enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cogni ...

( The Singularity).

Early life

Wolens was raised in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois. His father sold children's wear while his mother worked in an office. He graduated from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a Public university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...

in 1981. After graduation, Wolens considered pursuing a MFA in fiction, but his parents only gave him money for graduate school if he studied something 'worthwhile'. Wolens thus studied law at Seton Hall University Law School. Wolens briefly gave up his creative pursuits to practice business law in New York and

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. During this period, Wolens was involved in asbestos litigation.

Career

After his first marriage ended, Wolens realized while practicing law that he still had an urge to write, so he applied to and was accepted at San Francisco University where he took a screenwriting class.

Early documentaries and Happy Loving Couples

In 1993, Wolens became a filmmaker and his first documentary 'Happy Loving Couples' was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. In Happy Loving Couples, Wolens presents the difficulties of internal monologues of single women in big cities. Happy Loving Couples haunts the narrator by contrasting the difficulties of single women in big cities with the many images of urban locales. Wolens is noted for making Happy Loving Couples a 'personal film' which uses fictional narration as opposed to autobiographical narration. Two other shorts followed Happy Loving Couples, 'Reversal' in 1994 and 'In Frame' in 1995.

Weed

Weed, a 1996 film written, directed and produced by Wolens, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam before going on a forty-day United States theatrical tour. Weed is a documentary about the eight annual Cannabis Cup and in particular about Americans getting high during it. Wolens visited 56 coffeehouses and interviewed 300 people for Weed to get material for the documentary. Wolens documentary on Weed was of particular interest to him since he used to grow pot in the backyard while he was in college.

Butterfly

Wolens directed the documentary Butterfly. Butterfly describes Julia Hill, a rebellious, anti logging activist who lives in a redwood tree in her effort protest logging. Hill chose Wolens as the only person to document her protests. Wolens became aware of Hill's campaign during a DYI for his documentary Weed. After not being able to get the story out of his head, Wolens contacted Hill and set up the groundwork for the documentary.

The Singularity

Woolen's next documentary The Singularity is a documentary which questions transhumanism. The Singularity predicts that eventually technology will go beyond what humans can imagine. Wolens first learned about the singularity in 2000 while self distributing the Butterfly. On a chance occasion he read a blurb in an Internet business magazine about how technology would one day be as smart as people. Wolens then read up on the blurb's author (Kurzweil's) book ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' and it inspired him to create the singularity documentary. Wolens used Kurzeil in the film itself, which uses a lot of animated intercut interviews. Wolens also interviewed people not associated with artificial intelligent speculation or biomolecular work such as former US National Security council advisor Richard A Clarke to give a full view of the topic. Wolens didn't have the needed film grants for the film, however he still went around the country talking to various people related to the films topic which led him to question the evolution of technology one interview at a time.

Personal life

Wolens currently resides in

where he is involved with local events. In 2005, Wolens was a judge for

Eureka, California Eureka ( ; Wiyot: ; Hupa: ; ) is a city and the county seat of Humboldt County, located on the North Coast of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt Bay, north of San Francisco and south of the Oreg ...

's 5th annual Humboldt Redwood Coast Jazz Festival in 2005.

Filmography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolens, Doug Mass media people from Chicago American documentary filmmakers Mass media people from San Francisco Living people University of Oregon alumni Year of birth missing (living people)