Picture Character

Like the pictographs in Lascaux, strange symbols populate our phone screens, transmitting mysterious messages from both strangers and loved ones. Sure, we all know what they mean, but do you ever wonder where they came from, or who designs them, chooses them, and why they’re even in our phones in the first place? Turns out the process of birthing a new emoji is more interesting than you thought (if you ever thought about it at all). Anyone can suggest a new emoji, but you have to lobby for your design in front of a shadowy cabal of multinational corporations and organizations, and only a select few are chosen each year. This delightfully entertaining film follows several new designs and the people who propose them (including a young woman fighting for an emoji depicting a person wearing a hijab and one group's quest to have menstruation representation), all while demonstrating the remarkable ways emojis are changing culture and language, and filling in the story of the designer who invented them over 20 years ago. You'll never look at your phone's keyboard the same way again!