January 2008
Los Angeles, California
For immediate release:
FILMMAKERS DOCUMENT TRANSCENDENT MAN
Husband and wife team acquire the world-wide rights to the work, life and ideas of the
great inventor, futurist and NY Times best-selling author, Ray Kurzweil.
Filmmakers Barry and Felicia Ptolemy announced today that they are producing Transcendent Man, a feature-length
documentary on the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil. The film, which has been in production since early 2007, will wrap
this spring and is scheduled for release in 2009. Barry Ptolemy is directing the documentary. No distributor is
attached at this time.
The film begins by telling the story of Ray's early day's as an inventor, including his influences, successes and
accolades, and eventually delves deeply into his profound predictions about the future, raising questions about our
humanity, our divinity, and ultimately, our destiny.
“We’ve been on this whirlwind tour with Ray,” offers Ptolemy. “He’s become one of the top speakers on the circuit,
speaking alongside house-hold names like Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan, Colin Powell. And, yet, he’s the one that
receives the standing ovations. The public at large doesn’t know him that well, but we plan on changing that. We’re
confident that his ideas, as presented in the context of this film, will offer movie audiences a treat they just aren’t
going to be expecting.’”
Executive Producer Joe DiSanto recounts the first time he heard of the project, “Barry brought this idea to us… of
making a film on, The Singularity is Near. We said, get Ray Kurzweil on board and we’ll do it...and that’s exactly
what he did!” DiSanto is a partner at post-house, Therapy Studios, based out of Santa Monica, California. He and
fellow partners John Ramsay, Wren Waters, and Doobie White are financing the film.
Although many have attempted to bring Kurzweil and his mind blowing ideas to the silver screen, it was the Ptolemy’s
who were able to convince him to put his trust in them. “I immediately liked their take on my ideas, and I liked them,”
Kurzweil offered recently from his laboratory outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Filmmakers in the past didn’t
really get the material. The Ptolemy’s really get the details of my work and ideas.”
Aside from Kurzweil’s amazing inventions and best-selling books, he has become most famous for his disruptive
predictions. Predictions that reveal a world so different in twenty five years it has a lot of people scared. One person
who is not scared is Bill Gates. Gates has invited Ray to his house on more than one occasion and calls Ray, “The
best person I know at predicting the future…” Jack Welch, former chairman of GE, has also invited Ray to his home,
where he advises Ray on business ventures and Ray advises Jack on radical life extension.
“When I’m asked about the film, I have to take a big breath, because it takes a lot to describe it,” explains
Transcendent Man editor, Doobie White. “I mean where do you begin, with his inventions? His reading machine for
the blind? The Kurzweil keyboard? His books? I mean the man’s got 15 honorary doctorates, he’s been honored by
three U.S. presidents, and he’s an inductee into the inventors hall of fame. But in this film, all of those things are
secondary to his vision of the future and his journey in sharing it with the world at large.”
The film emphasizes Kurzweil’s predictions about the future and the positive repercussions of exponentially
accelerating technological change. Kurzweil says the challenges we face today like energy, poverty, war, global
warming, disease, and even death will be eliminated in the next twenty to thirty years.
“I believe our film offers something most Hollywood films and documentaries lack today…hope about our future,”
says producer, Felicia Ptolemy. “Ray is talking about the technology that we, the human race, have created, as a tool
we can use for good, rather than the continual narrative that we are on a path to destorying ourselves. Cynism is so
prevalent today, we don’t even notice it. We intend for this movie to change the world.”
For more information contact:
info@ptolemaicproductions.com
(310) 619-0928