He founded the most successful software firm in history. He is also the richest man in the world. Also, he is the largest private contributor to charitable causes. Yet, Bill Gates has attracted as many enemies as admirers.
Now, some of them are finally getting to enjoy a chuckle. Bill Gates has been taking it on the chin lately – at least on the big screen.
On Jan. 13, a documentary-style film premiered at an American film festival featuring the murder of the American software magnate in the early minutes of the movie.
Following the lead of the horror film The Blair Witch Project, the film Nothing So Strange has employed an Internet advertising blitz to draw attention to itself.
In addition to the main website at www.nothingsostrange.com, the creative team of Californian filmmaker, Brian Flemming, set up a handful of other Internet addresses. For months, they have been spreading a myth: the assassination of Bill Gates on December 2, 1999.
Surfers to www.billgatesisdead.com and www.citizensfortruth.org can find background information and chat rooms devoted to the film. The purported attack on the software billionaire in Los Angeles serves as the launching point for a plot concentrated on political themes.
Nothing So Strange propagates a conspiracy theory, which details how the official police version of the events surrounding the Gates murder had been falsified.
“I don’t have anything against the man,” Flemming says of Bill Gates. Indeed, Gates is positively presented in the film since he is portrayed as an altruistic billionaire who devotes his time at charitable events.
The bloody assassination of Gates is supposedly the beginning of a story that centres on class and race issues in America, Flemming says. It also touches on issues of police corruption. Flemming went so far as to secretly film his actors as they initiated a scene with security agents at a real public hearing of a police scandal.
At first glance, Nothing So Strange’s debut at the Slamdance Festival at Park City, Utah hit its mark. Just like The Blair Witch Project, which uses voices from television reports and shaky video images, this film reaches for the authenticity of actual documentary style.
Even the fictitious assassination seems real. To fill the software magnate’s role, Flemming hired Steve Sires, a part-time actor who owes his career solely to his striking resemblance to the billionaire.
