The Bit Player

For the 2013 Filipino drama-comedy, see The Bit Player (2013 film).

The Bit Player is a 2019 documentary film created to celebrate the 2016 centenary of the birth of Claude Shannon, the "father of information theory". The film was produced and directed by Mark Levinson, in cooperation with the IEEE Information Theory Society and the IEEE Foundation.^[1][2]

The panel discussion after the August 2, 2019, screening of The Bit Player at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. At the right, Andrea Goldsmith, a professor at Stanford and representative of the IEEE Information Theory Society. Center, Mark Levinson, director and producer of the documentary. Left, Hansen Hsu of the Computer History Museum, moderator.

The film premiered at the World Science Festival in New York City on May 29,^[3] and was screened for a large audience at the IEEE Information Theory Society's meeting in Vail, Colorado, on June 19.^[2]

A review in Physics Today calls it "not quite a documentary" and "a delightful new film".^[3] The film was named "best in show" in Realscreen's MIPTV Picks 2019.^[4]