Following positive reviews after its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in mid-Februrary, IFC Films has released a trailer for BlackBerry, the latest in a long-running string of tech industry founder films.
IFC Films’ Matt Johnson-directed BlackBerry tells the story of Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), and how the pair created the world’s first smartphone with Research in Motion, only to rapidly become a distant memory following the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android ecosystem.
For those old enough to remember, there was a time when the BlackBerry dominated the cellphone market and was synonymous with the concept of a “smartphone” (where do you think the term “CrackBerry came from?) It was the first cellphone to hit the market with a keyboard and constant internet access.
Johnson co-wrote the script with Matthew Miller, which is an adaptation of Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish’s book, ‘Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry.’
While my time covering the tech industry overlapped mostly with BlackBerry’s fall from grace with the Z10 and Q10, I fondly remember texting up a storm with the BlackBerry Curve 8530’s full QWERTY keyboard. Back in the latter 2000s, there wasn’t a more capable cellphone out there.
BlackBerry hits Canadian theatres on May 12th.
Image credit: IFC FIlms (YouTube screenshot)
