General Magic
Synopsis
Spun out from Apple in 1990 to create the ‘next big thing’, the ideas that now dominate the tech industry and our day-to-day lives were born at General Magic. The first smartphones. Social media. E-commerce. Even the beloved emoji. But this was before the web, before 3G, before Google, before everyone had a mobile phone in their pocket. The world was not ready in 1994 to hold the world in its hands. And though General Magic died, those concepts and the people who pioneered them went on to change almost everything.
Combining rare archive footage with contemporary stories of the Magicians today, this documentary tracks the progress of anytime, anywhere communication from a thing of sci-fi fiction in 1994 to a reality in our pockets and on our wrists today.
With members of the original Mac team and the creators of the iPhone, Android, eBay and more, this is the story of one of history’s most talented teams and what happens when those who dream big fail, fail again, fail better and ultimately succeed.
Official Selection Tribeca Film Festival 2018 - Spotlight Documentary - World premiere
Details
- Year
- 2018
- Type of project
- Features
- Running time
- 90 mins
- Format
- Digital
- Director
-
Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maude 1st Feature
- Producer
- Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maude
- Co-Producer
- Ceri Tallett, Dee Gardetti
- Executive Producer
- Reynold D'Silva, John Giannadrea, Michael Stern
- Editor
- Claire Ferguson, Anna Meller
- Screenwriter
- Sarah Kerruish, Jonathan Key, Matt Maude, Michael Stern, Ceri Tallett
- Director of Photography
- Jay Maude, Matt Maude
- Sound
- Alastair Sirkitt
- Composer
- Benji Merrison, Martin Phipps
- Principal cast
- Tony Fadell, Marc Porat, Megan Smith
- Film Image
- © Spellbound II Productions
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
US, UK coproduction
Spellbound II Productions (US), Left Eye Blind Productions (UK)
Left Eye Blind Productions
Matt Maude113 Hackney Downs Studios
London
E8 2BT
Sales Company
Cinetic Media
555 W. 25th Street, 4th FloorNew York
NY 10001
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Adlais
Director: Alex Darby, George Leith, Sophie Mei Birkin
Year: 2026
Adlais (Echo) weaves Welsh language folklore and histories through their shared subjects of poetry and drowning – and asks whether we’re listening to the past as it surfaces today.
The End of Times
Director: Luca Anzalone
Year: 2026
Caught between her indigenous Buryat roots—where art is a shamanic window between worlds—and a Western market that treats culture as a commodity, artist Yuma Radne constructs a monumental canvas to confront the psychological distortions of colonization at the edge of an irreversible era. "Either you make art, or you suffer. It’s like a curse." For painter Yuma Radne, the act of creation is not an aesthetic choice, but an ancestral code carried in the blood. Moving from a remote Siberian village to the high-stakes European art world, Yuma finds herself navigating a surreal landscape where sacred cultural identity is rapidly converted into a luxury product. Through intimate studio dialogues and raw philosophical reflections, the film captures the gruelling physical and mental labour behind her graduation masterpiece, The End of Times. Centred around a gargantuan erupting booze (a traditional Buryat dumpling) mutated into an absurd, monumental symbol of a colonised and erased national identity, the film transcends a typical artist portrait. It becomes a vital, cosmic meditation on why humanity continues to create art in the face of systemic collapse—and a powerful testament to an indigenous culture refusing to be reduced to a souvenir.
Tobias and the Angel
Director: Mark Forbes
Year: 2021
Tobias & The Angel are famous for their shop in West London where all the different aspects of what they do that are combined to make it feel like home. The shop is owned and run by Angel Hughes and has a story to tell about her family beginnings.