From a young age Magnus Carlsen had aspirations of becoming a champion chess player. While many players seek out an intensely rigid environment to hone their skills, Magnus’ brilliance shines brightest when surrounded by his loving and supportive family. Through an extensive amount of archival footage and home movies, director Benjamin Ree reveals this young man’s unusual and rapid trajectory to the pinnacle of the chess world. This film allows the audience to not only peek inside this isolated community but also witness the maturation of a modern genius.

After a terrible accident deep inside an underwater cave, the survivors are forced to risk their own lives to bring the bodies of their friends home.

This documentary film explores the world of the bow and the extraordinary masters who make them. The bow is the Cinderella of the orchestra—the overworked and overshadowed ally to its more glamorous partners. Few people, even among lovers of classical music, think of the bow as an instrument in its own right, but players of stringed instruments see them differently. To musicians, the bow is as essential to expressing the soul of the music as the violin or cello. The film follows the journey of the “silent servant” of the music world—from the workshops of the virtuosos of the trade, to the birthplace of the bow in France, and to Brazil, home to the imperiled tree from which the world’s finest bows are made.

Mrs. Vera’s Daybook tells a story of historic activism and community art through the works of two San Francisco artists, who also happen to be long-term AIDS survivors. During one of the darkest periods in US History, two men decide to bring joy and color to a broken community for which an entire movement has emerged. Supporters, fellow activists and members of the queer art community join the film to help paint this vivid portrait of perseverance, compassion and outrageous dime-store fashion.

Three young adults join a running program for disabled youth in Pakistan, hoping to shift perspectives in their rural community.

Using a wealth of rarely-seen archival footage, correspondence, and new and illuminating interviews, Julia Newman makes the case that Albert Einstein’s example of social and political activism is as important today as are his brilliant, groundbreaking theories.

Fat Wreck Chords… The influential music label proud to say they’ve spent the past 25 years “ruining punk rock”. A Fat Wreck tells the story of founders Fat Mike (of the legendary punk band NOFX) and his ex-wife Erin Kelly-Burkett, spanning the birth, growth, struggles, and survival of the Fat Wreck Chords label.

Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, has no idea what he’s in for when Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, contacts him on Facebook, seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby’s family. But things really get interesting when he develops a cyber-romance with Abby’s attractive older sister, Megan, a musician and model. Prompted by some startling revelations about Megan, Nev and his buddies embark on a road trip in search of the truth.

A magic realist fable about invisible elves, financial collapse and the surprising power of belief, told through the story of an Icelandic woman – a real life Lorax who speaks on behalf of nature under threat.

Stay Awhile is a human story told from the perspective of a daughter, the film’s Director and Writer Jessica Edwards, whose parents ‘The Bells’ attained fame in music selling millions of albums worldwide during the electric times of the 1960’s/70’s. Stay Awhile is a film that transcends the simple dream of life in a band, exposing the emotional dynamics between the men and women who were a part of it. The film is brought to life with interviews from the original members of The Bells, vintage film, artists and industry execs of the time. Evoking love, fortune, failure and the ties that bond in a document of unforgettable music moments shared in Canadian music history.

Follow several talented members of the ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution.

The documentary reveals the lives of three characters, who come from different social groups, and, at the same time, tells the story of a community that tries to adapt in a country with which has shared a common political past.