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Screenlife

Screenlife is a filmmaking format and genre in which the entire story is presented through digital screens, such as computer monitors, smartphones, and tablets, depicting events via simulated interfaces like web browsers, social media apps, video calls, and messaging platforms.^[1]^[2] This approach immerses viewers in a character's digital world, often blurring the lines between online and offline realities to explore themes of technology's influence on human interaction.^[3] The term "Screenlife" was coined by Kazakh-Russian producer and director Timur Bekmambetov to describe this storytelling method, where all action unfolds on the protagonists' device screens.^[1] Bekmambetov pioneered the format through his production company Bazelevs, with its debut in the 2014 horror film Unfriended, which was filmed entirely using screen-capture software and grossed $65 million worldwide on a $1 million budget.^[1] While early precursors like the 2002 webcam-based thriller The Collingswood Story experimented with similar concepts, Unfriended marked the genre's commercial breakthrough, evolving from found-footage traditions into a distinct style tailored to the smartphone era.^[3] Screenlife gained further momentum in the late 2010s and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as remote communication tools like Zoom became ubiquitous, allowing filmmakers to capture contemporary anxieties about digital isolation and surveillance.^[2] Notable examples include Searching (2018), directed by Aneesh Chaganty and produced by Bekmambetov, which earned $75 million on a $1 million budget and follows a father's online quest for his missing daughter; Host (2020), a Zoom séance horror directed by Rob Savage that achieved a 99% Rotten Tomatoes score; and Missing (2023), a sequel to Searching that topped Netflix charts and grossed $48.8 million.^[1]^[2] These films demonstrate the genre's versatility beyond horror, extending to thrillers and dramas while leveraging low production costs for high returns.^[3] Key characteristics of Screenlife include its fast-paced editing to mimic short digital attention spans, authentic replication of user interfaces for realism, and emphasis on how technology mediates relationships and identity.^[2] Bekmambetov has described it as "very contemporary – and necessary," reflecting how people increasingly live half their lives online.^[2] The format has expanded beyond cinema into video games, such as Sam Barlow's Her Story (2015), and continues to evolve with advancements in screen-capture tools developed by Bazelevs, including new accelerator programs and platforms launched in 2025.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Overview and History

Definition

Screenlife is a visual storytelling format in which all narrative events unfold entirely through digital interfaces, such as computer, tablet, or smartphone screens, incorporating elements like applications, video calls, emails, and social media interactions.^[2] This approach simulates the audience's direct engagement with the characters' digital experiences, presenting the story as if viewed from the device's perspective.^[6] The format is also referred to as "computer screen film" or the "screenlife genre," terms coined by filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov to describe this innovative method of narrative delivery.^[1] Unlike related techniques such as found footage, which may incorporate discovered videos or external recordings from various sources, screenlife remains strictly confined to real-time or simulated screen views, eschewing any traditional camera perspectives or physical filming outside the digital realm.^[7] This distinction emphasizes screenlife's focus on the immersive, interface-bound nature of contemporary digital life.^[8]

Origins

Screenlife was pioneered in 2014 by Kazakh-Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, who sought to capitalize on the growing ubiquity of smartphones and digital communication to craft immersive, low-budget narratives that reflect contemporary digital experiences.^[9] Although precursors like the 2002 webcam-based thriller The Collingswood Story experimented with similar concepts, Bekmambetov formalized the format through his production company Bazelevs, founded in 1991.^[10] He developed proprietary Screenlife technology to enable storytelling entirely through computer and mobile screens, allowing young filmmakers greater creative freedom without the constraints of traditional high-budget productions.^[10] This approach was motivated by the desire to produce accessible films, exemplified by an initial investment of $8 million that yielded multiple features, emphasizing efficiency and innovation in an era dominated by personal devices.^[10] The format gained prominence with the premiere of the first commercially successful Screenlife film, Unfriended (2014), a supernatural horror thriller directed by Levan Gabriadze and produced by Bazelevs under Bekmambetov's presentation.^[11] The film debuted on July 20, 2014, at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, where it unfolded entirely through a Skype video chat among teenage protagonists haunted by a deceased peer.^[11] Made on a modest $1 million budget, Unfriended grossed $62.9 million worldwide, demonstrating the commercial viability of the Screenlife model and popularizing it as a novel genre for digital-age audiences.^[9]^[12] Bekmambetov's philosophy underpinning Screenlife centers on using familiar interfaces to mirror modern life, positioning viewers as active participants in the narrative rather than passive observers.^[10] By confining action to screens, the format immerses audiences in the protagonists' digital worlds, evoking the intimacy and immediacy of everyday online interactions and fostering a sense of direct involvement in the unfolding events.^[9] This innovative language, as Bekmambetov described it, represents a "world with no rules" tailored to the internet era, enabling authentic portrayals of human behavior through technology.^[10]

Evolution

The Screenlife format emerged in the mid-2010s primarily within horror-thriller genres, with Timur Bekmambetov's production of Unfriended (2014) marking its debut as a low-budget found-footage style confined to computer screens, which grossed $62.9 million worldwide on a $1 million budget.^[13]^[12] This success paved the way for further explorations in suspense, exemplified by Searching (2018), which expanded the narrative to include smartphone interfaces and parental drama, earning $75 million globally and broadening appeal beyond pure horror.^[1] Between 2014 and 2018, the genre remained niche, focusing on digital isolation and cyber threats, with films like Profile (2018) introducing real-world journalistic elements while maintaining the screen-bound constraint.^[3] The COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022 significantly accelerated Screenlife's adoption, as quarantines heightened resonance with stories depicting remote communication and virtual isolation, mirroring global experiences of digital dependency.^[1] Productions like Host (2020), a Zoom-based horror film made during lockdown, exemplified this surge, achieving viral success on streaming platforms and demonstrating the format's timeliness for pandemic-era audiences.^[14] By 2023, the genre had diversified into drama and sci-fi elements, with works such as Missing incorporating AI-assisted searches and multi-layered digital interfaces to explore broader themes like identity and technology's societal role.^[1] Post-2020 technological advancements enhanced Screenlife's production and storytelling, particularly through multi-device synchronization that simulated real-time interactions across screens, as seen in films blending computer, phone, and app interfaces for more immersive narratives.^[2] In August 2024, Bekmambetov released Screenlife: How to Start Making Movies with Nothing but a Computer and a Story, a guidebook outlining DIY techniques for aspiring filmmakers to leverage everyday devices, further democratizing the format.^[15] Initially centered on Russian and U.S. productions via Bekmambetov's Bazelevs studio, Screenlife expanded globally by 2025, incorporating international co-productions such as the Indian C U Soon (2020) and Ukrainian Stay Online (2023), fostering cross-cultural adaptations of digital storytelling.^[1]

Genre Characteristics

Narrative Limitations

Screenlife's adherence to a screen-bound perspective fundamentally restricts direct depiction of off-screen actions, compelling filmmakers to convey events through indirect digital traces such as notifications, chat logs, or video recordings that imply unseen occurrences. This constraint, articulated in the genre's foundational "Unfriended Manifesto," enforces a unity of place where all narrative action unfolds within the confines of a single device's interface, eliminating traditional cinematic techniques like wide shots or physical movement to show external events.^[16] As a result, storytelling relies on the audience's inference from virtual artifacts, heightening ambiguity and tension but limiting the scope for expansive world-building. The format's emphasis on real-time progression imposes significant compression of time and space, curtailing opportunities for detailed backstory or nonlinear exposition in favor of immediate, suspense-driven sequences. Producer Timur Bekmambetov, who pioneered the term "Screenlife," has noted that narratives must simulate authentic digital interactions, such as delayed video calls or buffering, which amplify immediacy while restricting the depth of historical context to what can be revealed through on-screen searches or files.^[10] This real-time unity, as outlined in genre guidelines, demands in-frame montage without visible cuts, further constraining pacing to mirror the asynchronous nature of online communication and often introducing narrative hurdles like unreliable connectivity that characters must navigate.^[16]^[17] Character development in Screenlife faces unique challenges, as personalities and motivations must be inferred solely from digital behaviors rather than physical appearances or direct interactions. Bekmambetov highlights how subtle cues—like hesitations in cursor movement, deleted text, or emoji usage—serve to reveal internal conflicts and online personas, bypassing conventional acting methods that rely on facial expressions or body language.^[10] This approach, while innovative for exploring digital identities, restricts portrayals to mediated representations, often emphasizing fragmentation and the gap between virtual and real selves as central thematic elements.^[16]

Visual and Technical Features

Screenlife films employ multi-window interfaces to simulate the fragmented nature of digital multitasking, displaying simultaneous applications, web browsers, and social media feeds within a single frame. This technique divides the viewer's attention across multiple zones, mirroring real-world screen use and building narrative tension through overlapping information streams that require active interpretation. By arranging windows in overlapping or tiled layouts, filmmakers create a sense of polymedia chaos, where clues and distractions compete for focus, enhancing immersion in the protagonist's digital environment.^[18]^[2] Realistic UI replication is central to the genre's aesthetic, achieved through custom software that emulates operating systems such as Windows or macOS, including authentic elements like icons, menus, and desktop backgrounds. These tools enable precise simulation of user interactions, incorporating glitches, unsolicited pop-ups, and dynamic cursor movements to convey urgency and realism without breaking the digital illusion. For instance, proprietary technologies developed by producers like Timur Bekmambetov allow for real-time capture of screen activities, ensuring that elements like scrolling, zooming, and error messages align with genuine software behaviors, thereby fostering a seamless viewer-protagonist perspective. This level of fidelity avoids generic interfaces, instead prioritizing believable digital artifacts that heighten emotional engagement.^[10]^[19]^[18] Audio integration in Screenlife reinforces the screen-bound aesthetic by sourcing all sounds from virtual devices, such as keyboard typing, notification alerts, and distorted video call audio, to maintain diegetic consistency. This approach eliminates external ambiance, focusing instead on amplified digital acoustics—like echoing voicemails or buffering chimes—that underscore isolation and immediacy within the interface. By synchronizing these elements with visual cues, such as cursor hovers triggering chimes, the sound design deepens the sensory immersion, making the computer screen feel like the sole conduit for the story's reality.^[18]^[20]^[2]

Production Techniques

Screenlife productions rely on specialized software tools developed by Bazelevs to simulate realistic digital interactions across multiple devices. The company's Screenlife capture technology records actors' real-time engagements with applications, websites, and chat interfaces directly from computer screens, enabling seamless integration of multi-device scenarios such as simultaneous phone and laptop use. This custom platform facilitates real-time editing and collaboration, allowing filmmakers to build complex narratives without traditional filming rigs.^[19]^[21] The filming approach emphasizes remote performance, where actors operate from actual screens equipped with mounted cameras like GoPros to capture interactions authentically. Performances involve improvisation within pre-designed digital environments, with voice acting recorded in real time to convey emotion through audio cues and on-screen text. Cursor movements serve as a form of motion capture, mirroring actors' physical inputs—such as hesitant hovers or rapid clicks—to reflect character psychology and decision-making, eliminating the need for physical sets or on-location shoots.^[19] Post-production assembles these fragmented digital elements into a cohesive narrative, often incorporating graphic design to craft believable interfaces, emails, and social media feeds that enhance immersion. This workflow prioritizes efficiency, relying on consumer-grade hardware and software for quick iterations. As outlined in Timur Bekmambetov's 2025 guidebook, the format's low-cost model—favoring voice performances and digital assets over elaborate sets—enables budgets as low as $1 million while achieving global returns exceeding $60 million, making it accessible for independent creators.^[19]^[22]^[23]

Notable Examples

Feature Films

The Screenlife genre emerged in feature films with Unfriended (2014), directed by Levan Gabriadze, which unfolds entirely through a teenager's laptop screen during a Skype chat haunted by the ghost of a cyberbullied classmate.^[3] Produced by Timur Bekmambetov, the film popularized the format by integrating social media, video calls, and desktop interfaces to build suspense in real time.^[1] Its sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web (2018), shifts to a thriller about friends discovering a dark web site filled with real crimes, using multiple screens to heighten paranoia and ethical dilemmas. Directed by Stephen Susco and produced by Timur Bekmambetov, it expands the genre's technical scope with browser hacks and live streams.^[3]^[24] That same year, Searching (2018), directed by Aneesh Chaganty, follows a father's desperate online search for his missing daughter, piecing together clues from emails, search histories, and video footage across devices. The film's innovative use of split-screens and interface animations earned praise for humanizing digital isolation.^[3] Profile (2018), produced by Bekmambetov and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, depicts a journalist infiltrating an ISIS recruiter's online world via fake social media profiles, blending real-time chats and browser windows to expose radicalization risks. Based on a true story, it underscores Screenlife's potential for journalistic tension.^[1] In the mid-2020s, Missing (2023), directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, serves as a sequel to Searching, tracking a young woman's frantic digital hunt for her missing mother through global apps and surveillance cams. It innovates by incorporating international perspectives and family dynamics, using phone screens and AI tools to amplify emotional stakes.^[25] Recent releases have diversified the genre's subgenres. Invited (2024), a horror film directed by Navin Ramaswaran, traps viewers in a Zoom wedding ceremony that spirals into cult terror, leveraging video feeds and chat logs for intimate dread.^[26] Don't Log Off (2025), a thriller starring Ariel Winter and directed by Brandon Baer and Garrett Baer, centers on friends vanishing during a virtual party, unfolding via calls and social media to critique pandemic-era disconnection.^[27] At SXSW 2025, Lifehack, directed by Ronan Corrigan, premiered as a cryptocurrency heist narrative across multi-device interfaces, praised for its rhythmic editing and youthful energy in depicting online cons.^[28] Bloat (2025), a possession horror directed by Pablo Absento and starring Ben McKenzie, follows a family's remote battle against a Japanese folklore demon via FaceTime and apps during a vacation.^[29] Finally, War of the Worlds (2025), directed by Rich Lee with Ice Cube, reimagines H.G. Wells's sci-fi invasion through news feeds, social streams, and surveillance, blending global chaos with personal survival on screens.^[30]

Short Films and Documentaries

Short films have played a pivotal role in the development of Screenlife, enabling filmmakers to test narrative boundaries within confined digital interfaces and often under resource constraints like remote production. A landmark example is Host (2020), directed by Rob Savage, a 57-minute horror short created entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown using the actors' personal Zoom setups to depict a group's séance spiraling into supernatural terror.^[31] This film exemplifies early experimentation with real-time video calls, capturing the isolation and immediacy of pandemic-era communication while advancing Screenlife's horror applications.^[3] Preceding Host, shorts like Internet Story (2010), a 12-minute British thriller directed by Dyad Productions, explored desktop interfaces to follow a journalist uncovering a conspiracy through online research and emails, establishing foundational techniques for tension-building via screen artifacts such as browser tabs and chat windows. Similarly, SkyDiver (2011), a German short by Valentin Hahn, utilized computer screens to narrate a hacker's virtual infiltration of a high-stakes adventure, highlighting the genre's potential for suspense without physical sets. These early works emphasized Screenlife's accessibility for low-budget productions, fostering innovation in visual storytelling confined to monitors and devices. From 2023 onward, festival circuits have showcased emerging Screenlife shorts that push social commentary and genre blends. SURPRISE (2023), a 10-minute thriller directed by Madison De La Garza and produced by Max Marlow of Marlow's Production, unfolds via a group video call for a birthday party that reveals hidden tensions among friends, demonstrating the format's effectiveness for interpersonal drama in bite-sized formats.^[32] By 2025, shorts like Don't Look Too Long, a horror entry directed by an independent team, further experimented with blurring digital and real-world boundaries through webcam feeds, appearing in online horror festivals to highlight evolving production tools post-pandemic.^[33] These recent additions illustrate Screenlife's growing role in short-form education on themes like online deception and environmental awareness via simulated social media campaigns, though full eco-focused documentaries remain nascent in the genre.^[34]

Web Series and Television

Screenlife has found a niche in episodic formats, particularly through standalone television episodes and short-form web series, where the constraints of serialized narratives amplify tension via fragmented digital interactions, such as chat logs, video calls, and social media feeds. In the United States, one of the earliest examples is the 2015 episode "Connection Lost" from the sitcom Modern Family, which unfolds entirely on Claire Dunphy's laptop screen as she frantically searches for her runaway daughter Haley using webcams, emails, and instant messages. This 21-minute installment, directed by Jason Winer and written by Christopher Lloyd and Dan O'Shannon, innovated by integrating real-time digital elements to drive the comedy and family drama, marking it as a pioneering network TV application of the format.^[35]^[36] Building on this, Russian production company Bazelevs, founded by Timur Bekmambetov, extended Screenlife into serialized web content during the mid-2010s, experimenting with platforms like Snapchat to deliver bite-sized episodes that mimic everyday online experiences. A notable outcome was the 2019 horror-thriller series Dead of Night, a 10-episode Snapchat original produced by Bazelevs, where the story of a group of friends unraveling through escalating online pranks and supernatural encounters is told via smartphone screens, emphasizing the genre's potential for mobile-first serialized storytelling. This project, developed under Bekmambetov's Screenlife initiative, highlighted regional adaptations by leveraging social media's immediacy to build suspense across short, cliffhanger-driven installments.^[37]^[38] By the early 2020s, Screenlife episodic content proliferated on streaming and web platforms, with global examples showcasing regional storytelling variations. In the U.S., The Simpsons season 34 episode "My Life as a Vlog" (2023), directed by Matthew Nastuk, adopted the format for a satirical take on influencer culture, presenting Bart's misguided vlogging adventure entirely through phone and computer interfaces to critique digital fame.^[39] On YouTube and TikTok, independent creators produced short episodic series that reflect the format's accessibility for low-budget serialized horror. These developments underscore Screenlife's evolution toward episodic formats that exploit platform-specific features for ongoing narratives, from cliffhangers in webisodes to anthology-style TV pilots.^[39]

Cultural Impact

Influence on Filmmaking

Screenlife has significantly democratized filmmaking by lowering entry barriers for independent creators, allowing amateurs to produce professional-quality narratives using only basic computers and smartphones. Timur Bekmambetov's 2025 book, Screenlife: How to Start Making Movies with Nothing But a Computer and a Story, provides a step-by-step guide from ideation to distribution, emphasizing that no advanced equipment or large budgets are required, as demonstrated by the success of early screenlife films like Unfriended (2014), which was made for $1 million and grossed $65 million worldwide.^[40] This approach empowers indie filmmakers globally, enabling them to focus on storytelling without the financial and logistical hurdles of traditional production.^[23] The format has also spurred hybrid innovations, blending screenlife with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to create more immersive extensions of digital narratives. Projects like Navid Khonsari's Lili (2025), a hybrid screenlife video game and live-action film, exemplify how these technologies enhance viewer engagement by overlaying interactive elements onto screen-based stories.^[41] Additionally, screenlife has inspired a boom in low-budget horror productions post-2020, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, with films like Host (2020)—shot entirely via Zoom for $35,000—proving the format's efficiency for quick, cost-effective genre storytelling that capitalizes on familiar digital interfaces.^[3]^[42] In the broader industry, major studios have adopted screenlife for franchise expansions, with Sony Pictures utilizing the format for sequels in the Searching series, including Missing (2023), which evolved the style through advanced digital interfaces while maintaining narrative continuity.^[43]^[44] This adoption has positioned screenlife as a training ground for emerging directors, as seen with Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, who made their feature debut directing Missing and honed skills in digital editing to manipulate screen elements seamlessly.^[43]^[45] The book's recent tools for screen capture and editing further support this, offering accessible workflows for refining digital compositions.^[40]

Recent Developments and Future

In 2024 and 2025, the Screenlife genre experienced a notable resurgence, particularly within horror, with several productions pushing the format's boundaries through innovative digital interfaces. Films such as Don't Log Off (2025), a thriller directed by Brandon and Garrett Baer starring Ariel Winter, unfold during a virtual pandemic-era birthday party where participants mysteriously vanish, emphasizing real-time video chat and social media dynamics.^[27] Similarly, Bloat (2025), Pablo Absento's horror debut featuring Ben McKenzie and Bojana Novakovic, integrates FaceTime calls, dark web forums, and surveillance feeds to depict a family's remote confrontation with a folklore-inspired possession, incorporating elements like drone footage and online drug delivery for heightened interactivity.^[46] These releases highlight a shift toward more layered screen compositions, blending everyday apps with suspenseful narratives to mirror contemporary digital anxiety.^[29] The genre's growth was further supported by institutional initiatives, including the UAE Screenlife Accelerator Program launched in June 2024 by Image Nation Abu Dhabi and producer Timur Bekmambetov, which trained local filmmakers and announced winners in April 2025 to foster regional storytelling in the format.^[47] Complementing this, Bekmambetov introduced Screenlifer, a Black List-style platform in March 2025, to discover and develop Screenlife scripts like Howdy, Neighbor! and CRTL.^[4] Beyond horror, LifeHack (2025), Ronan Corrigan's action-thriller about a teenage cryptocurrency heist, premiered to acclaim at SXSW in March 2025, praised for its authentic portrayal of hacking, memes, and Gen Z online pranks viewed through a single computer's lens, expanding the genre into heist territory.^[48] Emerging applications include educational contexts, where Screenlife filmmaking has shown promise as a hands-on method to teach about information disorder and misinformation. A 2024 study in Estonian secondary schools demonstrated that student-created Screenlife videos increased engagement in media literacy lessons, empowering participants to explore emotional impacts of digital falsehoods without needing specialized equipment.^[49] This approach, using mobile devices for narrative construction, suggests potential extensions to documentaries addressing digital ethics and societal issues. Looking ahead, Screenlife continues to delve into digital privacy concerns, as seen in the 2025 adaptation War of the Worlds, a sci-fi reimagining starring Ice Cube that critiques surveillance and data collection through smartphone and laptop perspectives.^[50] Festival circuits have amplified visibility, with LifeHack also screening at Fantasia 2025 and awards like the Screenlife Futures at YoU Festival 2025 supporting new talent.^[51] These trends indicate sustained evolution, with the format's low-cost, device-centric production poised for broader adoption in interactive and thematic storytelling.

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[39]
Searching sequel Sony Stage 6 Will Merrick & Nick Johnson direct
Jan 13, 2021 · Sony's Stage 6 Films has closed a deal for Will Merrick & Nick Johnson to make their directing debut on the sequel to the Screenlife hit film Searching.
[40]
Timur Bekmambetov Unveils Slate of Screenlife Titles in Toronto
Sep 14, 2021 · The first Screenlife release, “Unfriended,” was picked up by Universal and grossed $65 million worldwide in 2015. It was followed by “Searching, ...
[41]
<I>Missing</I>: Editing Sony Pictures' screen-life thriller
Jan 26, 2023 · Sony Pictures' Missing is a new mystery thriller told entirely through computer screens and smartphones. Directed by Nicholas Johnson and ...Missing: franchise | Show results with:franchise
[42]
Bloat movie review & film summary (2025) - Roger Ebert
Rating 1.5/4 · Review by Marya E. GatesMar 7, 2025 · Imagine a J-horror plot involving a child possessed by a swamp demon told through the aesthetics of the screenlife found footage subgenre.
[43]
Timur Bekmambetov, Image Nation Team On UAE Screenlife Program
Jun 25, 2024 · Through the partnership, Bazelevs intends to expand the popularity of screenlife films across the Middle East and add it to key film markets ...
[44]
Timur Bekmambetov Launches The Black List-Style Platform ...
Mar 4, 2025 · His ambition for the new Screenlifer platform is to scale screenlife film production globally. The new ecosystem will identify, support, and ...Missing: January | Show results with:January
[45]
'LifeHack' Review: A Pulse-Pounding Screenlife Heist Film - Variety
Mar 13, 2025 · The film pushes the limits of the screens-only concept, given how much of its action unfolds far away from computers. It features security ...
[46]
(PDF) SCREENLIFE FILMMAKING AS A LEARNING-BY-PRACTICE ...
May 19, 2024 · The aim of this thesis was to develop an evidence-based intervention to support Estonian school teachers in implementing new teaching ...
[47]
'War of the Worlds' Trailer - Ice Cube Stars in Screenlife ...
Jul 24, 2025 · “Set against a backdrop of surveillance, mass data collection, and government-tech collusion, the film explores urgent themes of privacy vs.
[48]
Lifehack (Fantasia Festival 2025) - The Best Screenlife Film Yet
Aug 1, 2025 · That same clever energy and heart runs throughout Lifehack, which premiered at SXSW in March and now makes its Canadian debut at Fantasia.