Brooklyn Castle

Brooklyn Castle is a documentary about I.S. 318 – an inner-city school where more than 65 percent of students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level – that also happens to have the best, most winning junior high school chess team in the country. (If Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the team, he’d only rank fifth best.) Chess has transformed the school from one cited in 2003 as a “school in need of improvement” to one of New York City’s best. But a series of recession-driven public school budget cuts now threaten to undermine those hard-won successes.

Magnus

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.

Hennessy: Maurice Ashley, the Grandmaster

The film follows the rise of the chess player Maurice Ashley, the first black person to attain the title of Grandmaster.

Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi versus Karpov and the Kremlin

The story of the 1978 World Chess Championship between the Soviet Communist Party's protege, Anatoly Karpov and the traitor and Soviet defector, Viktor Korchnoi. One of those instances in life where truth is stranger than fiction.

Knight Moves

A chess grandmaster is in a big tournament, and when his lover is found painted up and the blood drained out of her body he becomes a chief suspect. After he gets a call from the killer urging him to try and figure out the game, he cooperates with police and a psychologist to try and catch the killer, but doubts linger about the grandmaster's innocence as the string of grisly murders continues.

Pawn Sacrifice

American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.

The World Champion

Some sporting victories are about more than just claiming a title. Some of them go down in history. The film follows the most dramatic and legendary showdown in the history of chess – the match between Anatoly Karpov, then world champion, and Viktor Korchnoi, a recent emigrant from the USSR. In this battle between two outstanding chess players, a duel of personalities under immense psychological pressure, the stakes are incomprehensibly high.

Searching for Bobby Fischer

A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.

Dabaru

Dabaru is a melodramatic tale about a young chess player named Surya who rose from the alleys of North Kolkata to become a grand master.

Once Upon a Spy

Computer genius and chess champion Ted Danson is lured into service by secret agent Eleanor Parker and becomes a reluctant hero thanks to a number of exploits with villainous Christopher Lee and his army of lethal blue-eyed blonde women.

Evan's Gambit

Two brothers, raised by a chess master, must battle head to head in the world's most competitive chess tournament.

Make Your Move

Two chess champions have a secret match to decide once and for all which of them is the better player.

Life in Loops (A Megacities RMX)

Timo Novotny labels his new project an experimental music documentary film, in a remix of the celebrated film Megacities (1997), a visually refined essay on the hidden faces of several world "megacities" by leading Austrian documentarist Michael Glawogger. Novotny complements 30 % of material taken straight from the film (and re-edited) with 70 % as yet unseen footage in which he blends original shots unused by Glawogger with his own sequences (shot by Megacities cameraman Wolfgang Thaler) from Tokyo. Alongside the Japanese metropolis, Life in Loops takes us right into the atmosphere of Mexico City, New York, Moscow and Bombay. This electrifying combination of fascinating film images and an equally compelling soundtrack from Sofa Surfers sets us off on a stunning audiovisual adventure across the continents. The film also makes an original contribution to the discussion on new trends in documentary filmmaking. Written by KARLOVY VARY IFF 2006

Chasseurs de phoques

Tourists

A reflection on tourism assembled out of amateur videos filmed by tourists during their trips.

Swan Song: The Story of Billy Wilder's Fedora

In retracing the making of FEDORA, Robert Fischer’s documentary SWAN SONG: THE STORY OF BILLY WILDERʼS FEDORA adds yet another layer of comment and reflection on the film’s very own subject matter: 35 years after playing the romantic leads in FEDORA, Marthe Keller and Michael York look back at working with Billy Wilder – and their careers. Additional testimonies come from acclaimed cinematographer Gerry Fisher, producer Harold Nebenzal, Paul Diamond (son of Wilder’s writing partner I.A.L. Diamond), and German actor Mario Adorf.