SIDEWAYS

In 2016 the governments of Canada, Ontario and Toronto put some of the most valuable undeveloped real estate in the world out for bid. The burgeoning global city asked developers for bold plans for a 12-acre gem of waterfront land sitting on the underused banks of Lake Ontario.

Much to its delight, in line with the city’s ambitions for the 21st Century, a company called Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google overseen personally by Larry Page, was looking for just such a project in order to match its own ambitions of revolutionizing the urban future.

But what began as a tech utopian vision devolved quickly and ferociously into a microcosmic street fight about that very future: about the ubiquity of invasive technologies, the increasing inequity of digital efficiency, the exploitative leverage and empty promises of big tech, the plight of domestic industry & regulation in the face of monopolistic power, and the ultimate question of who should share (and how) in the spoils of the world’s most valuable asset and public utility – the data that we all generate as a byproduct of our individual and collective existences. 

SIDEWAYS features a cast of some of the world’s richest and most influential people, one of its most iconic companies, the power brokers of governments, and the activists and thinkers and leaders who challenged all of them to take a stand against the absolute control and exponential inequality of our age.

SIDEWAYS is a story with global reach and implications. Serious but with a slightly satirical edge, featuring a diverse and squabbling cast of characters, many with compelling backstories all their own, it ultimately proves to be a fascinating commentary on the restraint, caution, and patience it takes to actually lead for the collective good.