Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker take a powerfully personal journey through the former East Germany, as Epperlein investigates her father’s 1999 suicide and the possibility that he may have worked as a spy for the dreaded Stasi security service.

Food Stamped is an informative and humorous documentary film following a couple as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Nutrition educator Shira Potash teaches nutrition-based cooking classes to elementary school students in low-income neighborhoods, most of whom are eligible for food stamps. In an attempt to walk a mile in their shoes, Shira and her documentary filmmaker husband embark on the food stamp challenge where they eat on roughly one dollar per meal. Along the way, they consult with food justice activists, nutrition experts, politicians, and ordinary people living on food stamps, all in order to take a deep look at the struggles low-income Americans face every day while trying to put three-square meals on the table.

Florida Justice Transitions is home to 120 convicted sex offenders. Like in many other U.S. states, sex offenders are not allowed to live within 1000 feet of places frequented by children. Because of this, many sex offenders live under bridges or in woods – or in the trailer park Florida Justice Transitions – known as Pervert Park. The crimes committed by the residents range from simple misdemeanors to horrendous acts unbearable to contemplate.

Filmed over the summer festival season, Stacey Lee’s uplifting documentary examines gender inequality in the electronic dance music scene.

On October 24 at 10am, Jon Foreman and his friends embarked on a music journey throughout San Diego aiming to play 25 shows in 24 hours. With venues including a children’s hospital, a wedding, and a Mexican restaurant, this 24-hour musical experience explores the polarity of everyday life, taking viewers to places that only music can go. Through his journey, Foreman discovers that the road less traveled is always worth the risk, and sometimes the only way to hold on is to let go.

Bad Seed is the tale of a tiny little seed that some see as good and others believe is evil. Cannabis and hemp can drastically improve the quality of life of people suffering from a wide range of symptoms and illnesses yet people are denied relief due to marijuana’s bad reputation. Is cannabis a bad seed? Or have it’s extraordinary health benefits been unjustly suppressed by government, law enforcement and corporate manipulation? Following the story of a medical marijuana user and activist, filmmaker Shayne Metcalfe delves into the history of cannabis prohibition in Canada, the United States and Mexico over the past century. Incorporating the perspectives of law enforcement, doctors, lawyers, activists, commercial growers, medical patients, historians and entrepreneurs, Bad Seed tells the fascinating story of how one of nature’s gifts came to be vilified and provides an intriguing look at the rapidly changing marijuana landscape.

A snapshot of a man whose many vices are actively getting the best of him and a collection of observations, interesting experiences, and sexual embarrassments from two years of non-stop touring

After a teenager’s friends die in an accident, he finds running allows him to remember them perfectly. Running, however, also brings him notoriety. He is caught between keeping the past alive and making new memories in the present.

Anthony Wonke directs this documentary marking the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster. Re-examining the events that led to the drilling platform, at the time the largest and oldest in the North Sea oilfield, exploding on the night of the 6th July 1988, killing 167 men, the film includes testimonies from rescuers and some of the 61 survivors, many of whom were forced to jump hundreds of feet into a flaming, oil-covered sea, and discovers what the physical and psychological legacy of the disaster has meant for those involved.

Centers on a woman who is kidnapped and forced to compete in elite underground fights and has to battle her way out to freedom.

The ostensibly simple story of a sympathetic veteran teacher giving Italian lessons to a weekly class of diverse immigrants is given infinitely more depth and complexity by the manner in which director Daniele Gaglianone renders his story. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, truth and artifice, and between documentary and drama, Gaglianone has created a film within a film. You see the apparent artifice of Gaglianone’s crew using professionals, including the noted film actor Valerio Mastandrea as the teacher, interlinked with ‘real’ immigrant protagonists, studying the language to improve their chances of employment and of gaining a permanent residence permit. Thus in the course of the lessons there is simultaneously the painful and upsetting relation of the students’ personal stories but also humour, as they interact and share their humanity, bridging cultural differences, united in their striving to make a better life for themselves. (Source: LFF programme)

Documentary filmmakers follow electro-pop duo FINKEL as they set out to write a record from within the frozen forests of their hometown – Michiganandapos;s isolated and eccentric Mackinac Island.