In journalist Mikhail Zygar’s docudrama series, you can watch the events of 1968 come to life on your phone in weekly episodes.
"Imagine your phone screen getting hijacked by someone else’s — and it’s the phone belonging to astronaut Neil Armstrong. All of a sudden, you start receiving urgent texts from president Lyndon B. Johnson urging you to reach the moon ahead of Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin.
"Sound alarming? Exciting? Now you can experience this scenario for yourself, thanks to Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar and his Future History Lab. They’re bringing the drama, transformation and turbulence of a pivotal year in world history to our phones with their mobile documentary series 1968.Digital.
"The series tells stories of 1968 as if they happened on 21st-century social media and other apps. Designed to be seen on smartphone, the 40 episodes — each about 10 minutes long — explore 1968 via 40 key global personalities and events. (The series can be watched on a computer, too.) “I always wanted not just to bring the audience back to history but to take the historical figures and bring them to the present — to make them alive so they could be really communicating with us,” says Zygar, a journalist, author, filmmaker, TED Fellow and founder of Russia’s only independent TV channel, Dozhd. The series premiered in late April, and as of today, seven episodes are online in Russia, France, North America, the United Kingdom and Australia. (In the latter three, the series runs under the title “Future History 1968” and is distributed by BuzzFeed News.) A new episode will be uploaded each week until December 29.