US NOW

In his student flat in Colchester, Jack Howe is staring intently into his computer screen. He is picking the team for Ebbsfleet United's FA Trophy Semi-Final match against Aldershot . Around the world 35,000 other fans are doing the same thing, because together, they own and manage the football club. If distributed networks of people can run complex organizations such as football clubs, what else can they do? Us Now takes a look at how this type of participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organizing structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever. Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager. The founding principles of these projects -- transparency, self-selection, open participation -- are coming closer.

Released in 2008, when facebook and twitter were only babies, Us Now stands as a document in time. The film has been archived by a BFI project to ensure films of historic value are preserved for at least the next century. Looking back a decade on, it's fair to say there's been some pretty big bumps in the road, what will the road look like in 100 years?