The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay

Award winning feature documentary GENERAL MAGIC is the untold tale of how a great vision and epic failure changed the world.

The ideas that dominate the tech industry and our day to day lives were born at a secretive Silicon Valley start-up called ‘General Magic’, which spun out of Apple in 1990 to create the “next big thing”. General Magic shipped the first handheld personal communicator (or “smartphone”) in 1994.

Featuring legendary members of the original Macintosh team, along with the creators of the iPod, iPhone, Android, and eBay, the film combines rare archival footage with contemporary stories of the “Magicians” today.

This is the story of one of history’s most talented tech teams and what happens when those who have a dream to change the world fail, fail again, fail better, and ultimately succeed.

Annapolis Film Festival (Maryland)
Mar 21 - 24, 2019
Q&A to follow
Eligible for Best of Fest

Irvine Film Festival (California)
Mar 22, 2019

Cleveland International Film Festival (Ohio)
April 4 - 6, 2019
Q&A to follow
Eligible for AdHocs and ReelWomen Awards

Athens International Film & Video Festival (Ohio)
April 10, 2019
Q&A to follow
Eligible for Best Feature Documentary, Film House Award, Black Bear Award

Phoenix Film Festival (Arizona)
April 5, 2019
Q&A to follow
Eligible for Competition Features

Red Stick Digital Future Festival (Baton Rogue, Louisiana)
March 28, 2018

Florida Film Festival (Orlando)
April 14 & 16, 2019
Eligible for Grand Jury Award, Special Jury Award and Audience Award for Documentary Feature

For private or corporate screenings of General Magic, please contact us.
List of previous festivals and screenings here.

Press

'Poignant, entertaining and full of life lessons from the small and personal to the universal.’

- Forbes

'The biggest eye-opener of Tribeca 2018'

- Film Journal

‘‘Gripping material, deftly edited, ‘General Magic’ is remarkable’'

- Barrons

'A fascinating look at what it means to fail, and whether a failure that changed the world is really a failure at all.'

- Apple Insider

‘General Magic is a reminder of how compelling stories about technology can be.'

- The Verge

‘Tech nerds everywhere should rejoice at General Magic’

- MXDWN

'At premiere of General Magic doc, tech icons consider the future' (CNET)

'Ultimately, it’s not a film about tech. It’s a film about people who have a dream to change the world and what it takes to do it.' (Recode Decode podcast hosted by Kara Swisher)

‘It’s all informative, but the biggest kick is giggling at the key players’ startlingly accurate predictions of the kind of world we’re now living in' (Village Voice)

'Copious amounts of fascinating behind-the-scenes footage illustrating the youthful energy and passion fueling the enterprise' (The Hollywood Reporter)

'General Magic—how tech superfriends assembled, dreamt up smartphones, and failed' (Ars Technica)

'7 design lessons from Silicon Valley’s most important failure'
(Fast Company)

'Before Apple’s iPhone There Was General Magic' (Barron's)

'“General Magic” captures the legendary Apple offshoot that foresaw the mobile revolution' (Fast Company)

Marc Porat

CEO of General Magic and visionary of the smart phone. Former member of the Aspen Institute, founder of multiple companies in the sustainability and the built environment sectors.

Megan Smith

Brilliant engineer and humanitarian, former U.S. Chief Technology Officer under the Obama Administration, former VP at Google, co-founder of The Malala Fund and shift7.

Andy Hertzfeld

One of the world’s greatest software engineers, member of the original Apple Macintosh team, co-founder of General Magic and co-creator of Google Circles.

Tony Fadell

Joining General Magic as a young college apprentice, Tony continued on to co-invent the iPod and iPhone, founded Nest and today heads the innovative Future Shape.

Joanna Hoffman

Member of the original Apple Macintosh team, Head of Marketing at General Magic and the woman who famously stood up to Steve Jobs.

John Sculley

Former Apple CEO. The benefactor who gave his blessing to General Magic, then launched the Newton without a word to the Magicians.

Kevin Lynch

Former CTO of Adobe, creator of Dreamweaver, lead engineer on Apple Watch and current VP of Technology at Apple.

Steve Jobs

The prophet in exile, whose spirit and rebellion haunt this story.

Sarah Kerruish

Director, Producer, and Writer

“The making of GENERAL MAGIC was a very personal journey for me. Not only had I filmed the early days of that company but I also experienced the catastrophic failure of a startup that I had been very involved in. So often we hear about the great success stories in Silicon Valley but what about all those people who don't make it? This was my way of understanding the role of failure in any creative endeavor and what it takes to bring important ideas to life.

Our hope is that this film will inspire the next generation of technologists and makers to learn from those who have gone before them and apply the lessons of General Magic to solving the most important problems of our day.”

Before moving back to London, Sarah Kerruish lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years where she worked as a filmmaker with some of the great inventors of our age. Her films have been distributed worldwide and won many awards, including a Peabody and an Emmy nomination. In 2017, she made a short film about the last few days of the tech team at the White House under President Obama. Sarah is currently Chief Strategy officer at Kheiron Medical, working with an incredibly talented deep learning team to improve the detection and treatment of breast cancer. In 1993, she worked with a documentary crew filming the team at General Magic. As a former Magician herself, Sarah’s unparalleled access to the subjects in our film allows her the greatest insight and intimacy to the heart of our story.

Matt Maude

Director, Producer, Cinematographer and Writer

“When I began working on GENERAL MAGIC, there was this amazing moment reviewing the archival films shot at the company in 1992, seeing all these young people sitting on the floor of a tiny office. It was incredible to see the founders of eBay, Linkedin, Android, and Nest sitting there. Engineers that now lead Samsung, Apple, Facebook, Google.

Imagine one class at high school and every single student going on to change the lives of billions. What was the special ingredients that led to the technology we use today? What was discovered or learned? Watching that archival tape I wanted to make their story. Humanize and de-mystify the people that shape the industries and technologies we use every day. Show the emotions behind those who made the emoticon. The touch screen, the software modem, the tools we now can’t imagine living our lives without.”

Matt Maude is an award winning director, writer and producer. After starring in the UK ITV soap Crossroads during his teenage years, Matt moved to working behind the camera, directing and producing adverts, promos, music videos and narrative shorts. As a screenplay writer and director, Matt won the Kirin First Press Award for direction and the Epic Award for Best Screenplay and was nominated for the Virgin Media Shorts Award. He is a member of a UK’s regional screen agencies ‘Super 8’ - one of eight filmmakers to watch. In 2017, he joined Sarah Kerruish in creating a film about the last week of the Obama Administration. General Magic is his first documentary feature film. At the Tribeca Film Festival, Matt was nominated for the Best New Director Award.

John Giannandrea

Executive Producer

John Giannandrea left General Magic to become one of the first employees at Netscape. Today he is a senior executive at Apple Inc., leading its Machine Learning and AI strategy effort.

Jonathan Key       

Writer & Story Creator

With a background in academia, publishing and creative writing, Jonathan has consulted on a variety of documentaries, most recently the forthcoming The Island and the Whales. He is currently working as story producer on Churban, a feature documentary on the last survivors of the Holocaust due for release early 2016.

Ceridwen Tallett

Co-Producer and Story Creator

D&AD Yellow Pencil winner, Ceri Tallett, is co producer and part of the film’s writing team. Having worked at Pentagram, Apple and an array of leading ad agencies and brands on tone of voice, copywriting and branding, Ceri’s style eye leads the direction of the project’s feel and design.

Dee Gardetti           

Co-Producer

The fourth employee at General Magic and subsequent Head of HR, Dee Gardetti went on to work at various startups and businesses in both Silicon Valley and San Francisco. As co-producer, Dee has been instrumental in the logistics side of the film, organising schedules, setting up interviews and bringing the former Magicians back together on film.

Claire Ferguson       

Senior Editor

Claire Ferguson is a documentary film director and editor. Her previous work includes the award-winning The Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003), The End of The Line (2009) and the Grammy winning A Concert for George (2005). Prior to documentaries, Claire worked in drama features alongside the likes of Terry Gilliam, Mike Leigh, Stanley Kubrick, Richard Attenborough and The Beatles.

Anna Meller       

Editor

Anna Meller has been working as an editor for the past 8 years, having edited several Sundance featured shorts as well as documentaries for the Guardian and Vice Media. General Magic is her first feature. Anna is co-founder of London-based production company Bullion Productions.

Contact

For all questions & INQUIRIES: 

info@generalmagicthemovie.com