Paper short abstract:

Life in a Day series is a successful example of crowdsourced documentaries.The movies take advantage of a collective intelligence (Lévy) and enhance a participatory culture (Jenkins); on the other, they perpetuate the logic of the neoliberal system creating a biased neoliberal participation.

Paper long abstract:

Life in a Day series has legitimated the use of crowdsourcing for documentaries. Therefore, crowdsourced projects could constitute a solution to cinema's crisis in consonance with new media and new relationships between consumers and producers. Jeff Howe coined the term crowdsourcing to refer to the externalization of a task in order to take advantage of a globalized world and discover hidden talents. However, the neoliberal model which rules the globalized world taints the promises of freedom that are implied in the term.

The original film Life in a Day is problematic in terms of fair globalization since it portrays histories from the entire world, but from a US-centric perspective. As a result, the subsequent films (Britain, Japan, Italy, Spain) try to correct that by concentrating only on a particular region. Paying attention to the geographic and production differences I argue that the impact of neoliberalism changes from one film to the other, since the depicted societies present modes of resistance to the hegemonic economic system. In particular, the examples of Italy and Spain are relevant because they try to include the discontent of the society towards the political and economic system.

The evident contradictions between the freedom of crowdsourcing and the constrictions of a neoliberal market come into play in every project. The only possible solution to the dilemma is allowing hacking, in the form of film dialogue or remixes, in order to assure the return of the participants' freedom.