New Trailer for Re-Release of Early Internet Documentary 'Home Page'

"I really do live most on the 'net." Passion River is re-releasing the vintage tech documentary called Home Page, which originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999. The film never really got a release, but now 20 years later (in the midst of our current internet hysteria) they're re-releasing it for everyone to watch. Following one of the first and most notorious bloggers at the birth of the internet, Home Page shows us where our online navel gazing began and how it quickly led to where we are now. It profiles Justin Hall, who was described in 2004 as "the founding father of personal blogging", examining his early website The D-Word (which is now a site for documentaries) and the implications of the web years before the invention of modern social media. We're big documentary fans here at FS, and it's exciting to bring attention to a lost doc film that we probably should be thinking about more. Ebert was also a big fan of this doc. Dial in below.

Here's the new re-release trailer for Doug Block's documentary Home Page, found on Vimeo (via Kottke):

The year is 1996 and documentary filmmaker Doug Block, fascinated by this new thing called the internet, trains his wry, analytical lens on the burgeoning home page (i.e. blogging) phenomenon. He soon falls under the spell of 21-year old cyber superstar Justin Hall, whose (literally) bare-all online diary spares no details about friends, family, lovers and, inevitably, Block himself. When Hall goads the filmmaker into keeping his own online diary, the story takes an unexpectedly personal turn, with hilarious and deeply affecting results. Home Page is directed by American filmmaker Doug Block, who also directed the other docs The Heck with Hollywood!, 51 Birch Street, and The Kids Grow Up. This film originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 1999. It barely got any release after that, but will finally be available this year. Passion River Films already re-released Block's Home Page direct-to-VOD/DVD early this month - on April 16th. It's available to watch now on most digital outlets. For more info, visit the official website. Cool?