The Surrounding Game

Guanglin is a blind boy in China who displays great skill at the ancient board game called Go, in which two players place black and white pieces on a grid in an attempt to dominate their opponent. Raised by a single father with limited means, Guanglin faces deep societal prejudice against the blind. First-time filmmaker Yunhong Pu, supported by veteran producer Jean Tsien (76 Days), follows the father and son trying to make a better future for themselves.

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story shows how the classic board game has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon and follows the colorful players who come together to compete for the coveted title of Monopoly World Champion.

The ancient Chinese game of Go has long been considered a grand challenge for artificial intelligence. Yet in 2016, Google's DeepMind team announced that they would be taking on Lee Sedol, the world's most elite Go champion. AlphaGo chronicles the team as it prepares to test the limits of its rapidly-evolving AI technology. The film pits man against machine, and reveals as much about the workings of the human mind as it does the future of AI.

Ten years before the outbreak of the Second World War in Asia, a Japanese Go master and his Chinese rival meet in China to play a game of Go (loosely described as an Asian version of chess). It soon becomes evident that the Chinese master's son is the most talented player that the Japanese master has ever encountered, and he convinces the boy's father to let him bring the child back to Japan to train him as a professional Go player. Years pass, and as the young Chinese master grows to maturity in Japan, the Japanese invasion of China forces him to choose between his triumphant career and his loyalty to his native country. His decision is complicated by his marriage to the daughter of the Japanese master, with whom he has produced a child. His choice will profoundly alter the lives of two families. Their saga serves as a reflection of the tragic relations between their two great countries, and the possibility of reconciliation and healing.

Coming to grips with the truth that he will never earn a living playing baduk, a young man's chance encounter with a local gangster finds him with a new pupil in this drama about the vastly different past and future of the two men.

In the 1990s, when Go gambling fever swept Korea, Gui-su loses everything because his father gambled obsessively until there was nothing left. Left all alone in the world, Gui-su meets a mentor and Go teacher, Il-do, and goes through vicious training to become the grandmaster of Go. He sets out for revenge on the world that destroyed his life, but soon finds himself chased by an unknown loner pursuing his own vendetta.

Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals.

A young Chinese Go board game player arrives in Japan for training. He doesn't speak Japanese and becomes embarrassed living there. By dropping his Go stones, he happens to meet an old Japanese woman who sells vegetables on the street. They become familiar with each other. The young Chinese Go player, the old woman named Igarashi and her grandson Shoichi then live together.

The life of Go master Wu Qingyuan from his meteoric rise as a child prodigy to fame and fortune as a revolutionary strategic thinker, as well as the tumultuous conflicts between his homeland of China and his adopted nation of Japan.

When LIU Yishou, nicknamed the "Go King" by his peers because of his skill in Weiqi (Go), finds himself without a job. And with no other skills to make a living, he then turns to teaching this strategic Chinese board game in a humble training school for children. Annoyed by her husband's passion for the game, LIU Yishou's wife leaves him, but their son, Xiao Chuan, wants to stay with his dad. Unexpectedly, LIU Yishou discovers that his son has a great talent for playing Weiqi and vows to support him in developing his gift for the game. A struggle then arises for the Go King to come up with the money to finance his son's studies of Weiqi.

A professional GO player gathers a team to help him carry out his revenge against the man who killed his brother.

Weiqi, often referred to as "Go" in English, is arguably the most important game in East Asia, with an estimated thirty million to fifty million players throughout the world. Weiqi is a board game but it is more. It is immersed in more vivid and often contradictory cultural metaphors than any other game in the world. As Chinese politics have changed over the last two millennia, so too has the imagery of the game—from a tool to seek religious enlightenment to military metaphors, one of the noble four arts, one of the condemned “four olds”, nationalism, transnationalism, historical elitism, and futuristic hyper rationality.

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

There are limits to jokes? What is the politically incorrect humor? A joke has the power to offend? It is these issues that 'Laughter of Others' discusses interviewing personalities such as comedians Danilo Gentili and Rafinha Bastos, cartoonist Laerte and Congressman Jean Wyllys, among others. The documentary delves into the world of Stand Up Comedy to discuss the fine line between comedy and offense, between legal and what creates endless lawsuits.

The Man Who Saved the World is a feature documentary film about Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

The tobacco industry's conspiratorial efforts to market their products in the face of public health facts and public opposition.

A filmed record of the 1978 "Alternative Miss World" beauty pageant held in a circus tent on Clapham Common in South London.

Stonehenge Decoded presents world renowned archaeologists as they reveal a revolutionary new theory about who built Stonehenge and why.

This documentary combines archaeological and geological evidence with tales passed down through generations, uncovering a dramatic history of cannibals, vast stone cities, human sacrifice, and the epic voyagers who colonised the Pacific centuries before Columbus made it to America.

Award-winning musician Björk and legendary broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough have admired each other's work for years but this is the first time they have discussed their mutual love of music and the natural world on screen. In this remarkable documentary, Björk explores our unique relationship with music and discovers how technology might transform the way we engage with it in the future.