Chicago comics talk about the trials and tribulations of developing their acts in the Windy City.

Everyone dreams of fame. From the nail-biting freshman auditions to the spectacular year-end performances, Fame High captures the in-class and at-home drama, competition, heartbreak, and triumph during one school year at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, also known as Fame High.

Billboards and commercial messages dominate the public space like never before. Can we reverse this visual pollution? This Space Available looks at diverse activists from the worlds of advertising, street art, and politics. Influenced by the writing of Marc Gobé ( Emotional Branding ), his daughter Gwenaëlle directs with tremendous verve in her depiction of New Yorkers and others around the world who want to reclaim the integrity of their cities against an onslaught of visual pollution. From 240 hours of film, 160 interviews, and visits to 11 countries on five continents, This Space Available charts a fascinating variety of struggles against unchecked advertising and suggests that more than aesthetics is at stake. If Jacques Attali once called noise pollution an act of violence, is visual pollution also such an act?

Twentysomething Petri got over a break-up by pushing his credit card limit in order to buy stuff. Still, after three years, the anxiety remains, so all things must go into a storage container. For a year, Petri allows himself to retrieve only one item per day. New life begins naked next to a radiator.

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.

Far from intensive farming and industrial output, a revolution is already under way; good red meat has become a rare, indeed, luxury product. But where is the world’s best steak found? Franck Ribière and his favorite butcher, Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec, generous, charming, and ecological, set out to meet the new players in the field to try to understand what makes a cut of meat good.

Built upon a 14 hour interview, McKellen: Playing the Part is a unique journey through the key landmarks of McKellen’s life, from early childhood into a demanding career that placed him in the public eye for the best part of his lifetime. Using an abundance of photography from McKellen’s private albums and cinematically reconstructed scenes, a raw talent shines through in the intensity, variety and devotion to that moment in the light.

An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for identity leads us back across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo.

The final documentary in Christopher Sykes’ trilogy about legendary Palestinian-born Israeli movie director, producer, and studio mogul Menahem Golan looks back to the prolific filmmaker’s great Hollywood days, then forward to reveal a man who, in his eighties, still buzzes with energy, talking lovingly about what inspires him as he anticipates making a new blockbuster and receiving the Oscar he’s always wanted. – Denver Film Society

Marc Emery, Canada’s most prominent marijuana activist popularly known as the “Prince of Pot,” faces extradition to the U.S. and a possible life sentence for selling marijuana seeds. “Prince of Pot” follows the controversial self-made leader of the marijuana movement as he attempts to raise an army of pot activists and lead them into battle against the U.S. Federal Government and their drug enforcement police, the D.E.A. Through Emery’s unique life and career as a civil agitator — from his beginnings in London, Ontario to his showdown with the U.S. Drug Czar in Vancouver and D.E.A. in Montreal — the film examines deeper questions: Canadian sovereignty and police integration in a world dominated by its southern neighbor. Written by Nick Wilson

San Francisco has long enjoyed a reputation as the counterculture capital of America, attracting bohemians, mavericks, progressives and activists. With the onset of the digital gold rush, young members of the tech elite are flocking to the West Coast to make their fortunes, and this new wealth is forcing San Francisco to reinvent itself. But as tech innovations lead America into the golden age of digital supremacy, is it changing the heart and soul of their adopted city?

The cameras of Jacques Perrin fly with migratory birds: geese, storks, cranes. The film begins with spring in North America and the migration to the Arctic; the flight is a community event for each species. Once in the Arctic, it’s family time: courtship, nests, eggs, fledglings, and first flight. Chicks must soon fly south. Bad weather, hunters, and pollution take their toll. Then, the cameras go