Written & Directed by Ben Hirt

[ Logline ]  SUPERMARIO – is a documentary film questioning the more recent hype of technological innovations fueled by the indispensable smartphone.

[ Synopsis ] Superintendent Mario DeMaio was born and raised in Dumbo, Brooklyn NY, during the 1960s. Over the past decade, his neighborhood transformed into a technology hub - The Brooklyn Tech Triangle. Technologies that have worked for centuries are suddenly being reinvented, do to the smartphone-hype. It is only when powerful mother nature imposes a sobering storm onto New York City, bringing the smartphone hype to a temporary halt and questioning the stream of innovation and its impact on society.

[ Project Summary ] Dumbo, a section of Brooklyn in New York City, has transformed into the second largest tech-hub within the United States in less than a decade, namely the Brooklyn Tech-Triangle. Startups push for technological innovation in connection to the indispensable smartphone.

Born and raised in Dumbo during the 1960s, Mario DeMaio not only experienced the transformation of his neighborhood, but also an uncomfortable shift in society. As a boy, Mario attended school district PS8 in Brooklyn Heights. He noticed the superintendent at his school and was impressed by the superintendent's keychain. It was then Mario realized that he wanted to carry those keys someday and become a superintendent.

In 1981, Mario became officially certified by the City of New York as a building superintendent. Nowadays, Mario lives and works in the basement of a famous neighborhood restaurant called Superfine. His self-constructed office space lays in the bowels of the building; several beams, pillars, and pipes shape his room into an intertwined underground-space. A wall of television monitors that are connected to all of the cameras inside and outside his building provide security. Mario calls the tv-monitors his windows to the outside world.

As a superintendent, Mario relies heavily on his manual skill-set on a daily basis. Remembering all of his keys and doors by heart saves him time when working in a building. Being innovative and resourceful is a necessity to him. Repairing old machines he found in the dumpster and reusing parts goes hand in hand with recycling to him. Throughout the past few years, he has become friends with Mimi, a Chinese bottle collector from the neighborhood. Mario started helping her out by holding on to bags filled with recycled bottles and cans for her. Day-in and day-out, nights, weekends, summer as well as wintertime, Mario is subjected to the outside and therefore well aware of his surroundings and ever so changing environment.

Screen-based devices, on the other hand, seem to have greatly impacted human to human interaction, as well as the perception of the real world. The hype around smartphone- gadgets, and innovation created momentum comparable to an ever spinning carousel – momentum that is hard to stop again. Jonathan Cedar (CEO of BioLite) and his company invented a hybrid of mankind’s latest and first technology combined; providing smartphones with the energy of a fire – a wood burning stove that converts heat into electricity via USB-Outlet. Mark Prommel (CEO of PensaNYC) and his team created Street Charge – a solar mobile charging station for smartphone devices. The power-hungry devices can now be charged during the day in the outdoors throughout NYC. Bernhard Mehl (CEO of Kisi) invented a smart-lock system, replacing the physical key through the smartphone. Digital Keys can be shared infinitely through a server system. Home and office doors can be unlocked remotely from anywhere in the world.

The dependency on systems connected to smartphones has greatly impacted human behavior, skills and even social-interaction in nowadays society. Mario is concerned about the rate technology progresses and ultimately changes human behavior overall. He worries about the loss of basic human skills, socially and manually, not being able to survive without the screen-based devices at our disposal. The full immersion into screen-based technology has possibly removed society one step further from reality – possibly distracting mankind from the real world challenges that need to be overcome. It’s only when the power of mother nature imposes a sobering storm onto New York City and the Brooklyn Tech-Triangle, bringing the smartphone hype to a temporary halt and questioning the stream of innovation and systems we rely on a daily basis. A wide-span power-outage forced the city and its residents to revert back to the basics, if only for a couple of days. Smartphones became useless, as cell towers and networks were compromised all over the tristate area. It was then when Daniela Perdomo (CEO of GoTenna) and her team started working on a peer to peer communication system that also works in cases of emergencies. A small antenna device can be paired with any smartphone via Bluetooth in order to establish a mesh network.

It is Mario’s belief after all, that more severe storms and blackouts will shift society’s focus back to the real world. What once thought to be obsolete will, therefore, be reintroduced. It is old technologies, such as a physical key, human to human interaction and the fire that we knew about all along, then becoming relevant again. In his opinion, the tech-community in DUMBO wouldn't be able to make a fire from scratch, let alone survive in the jungle.

[ Artistic Statement ] Mario lives in his own world, mostly by himself and in his own mind. It is the “Supermario World” that offers us a glimpse into his life. As the word “Supermario” refers to the popular Nintendo-Game from the 1990s, ironically Mario’s lifestyle choices reflect that time period. The film captures his life and perspective in a humorous, emotional yet surreal way. The film merges reality and the surreal, reflecting on the smartphone era we all are subjected to.

Mario raises awareness of the fact that through innovation and technology old customs too often get left behind. Social skills in the real-world (human to human interaction) have been important up until a few years ago, when Facebook and Co. started a new era of social norms. We have become smartphone zombies that are addicted to a network that is larger than we can grasp. The system has led to an inherent detachment from our immediate surroundings. The convenience of technology and our dependence on it has also affected our manual skills. Twenty years ago a pilot knew how to fly an airplane. Two hundred years ago we actively participated in our local communities through social interactions and paid attention to one another. Two thousand years ago we had the manual skill to make a fire from scratch. All of these three examples are no longer true in today’s society. In fact, we are more distant from these skill sets than ever before. Too often we are concerned with the innovative outlook into the future, neglecting and forgetting some of the fundamental elements that make us human.

Documentary films have the power to provide a platform for subject matters that otherwise would not be heard or seen. Through Mario’s character, the film addresses recent developments in technology which affect our current society.