The Independent Television Service (ITVS), which brings independently produced, high-quality public broadcasting and new media programs to local, national, and international audiences, announces the launch of FUTURESTATES, a new online series that presents an intriguing collection of 11 short films offering diverse visions about what life in America will be like in the decades and centuries to come. TVS worked with today’s best and emerging independent filmmakers to complete the 11 short films to produce FUTURESTATES. The series launches as an immersive destination website today at http://www.futurestates.tv and will be available for FREE via streaming video, with subsequent distribution on PBS. FUTURESTATES is intended to reach new audiences that are younger and more diverse by combining online viewing with a shorter format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist. Down the road, FUTURESTATES will be available for public television broadcast.

Each episode of FUTURESTATES presents a different filmmaker’s vision of American society in the not-too-distant future, fusing an exploration of social issues with elements of speculative and science fiction. Contributors include acclaimed director Ramin Bahrani (“Goodbye Solo”), whose mini-feature “Plastic Bag” narrated by the legendary Werner Herzog, traces the epic, existential journey of a plastic bag searching for its lost maker. In award-winning director Greg Pak’s “Mister Green,” a government undersecretary charged with terminating an experimental program to curb global warming ends up much greener than he ever imagined possible. Tze Chun (Children of Invention, Windowbreakers), named among the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine directed “Silver Sling,” which examines a polarized economy of the near future where corporations offer financial incentives to high ranking female employees to pay for chemically accelerated surrogate births and reveals the personal costs for the surrogates themselves.

The FUTURESTATES website will not only stream the 11 short films in high-quality video, but also the “Predict-o-Meter,” a unique interactive feature that invites viewers to submit their own predictions about life in five, 25, or even 100 years from today, and comment on the predictions of others.

The series will also be playing at local film festivals like SXSW and the 2010 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. We’ll also be posting some of  the series on channelAPA.com

Futurestates trailer