Chess Poem

Can exercise sharpen the brightest minds? In this ground-breaking experiment, four world-class gamers, competing in eSports, Chess, Mahjong and Memory Games, put this to the test.

Hasan Hourani, a Palestinian poet and illustrator, died aged 29 in Jaffa while trying to rescue his nephew from the sea. Shortly after, the filmmaker Mais Darwazah discovers his drawings and poems and feels drawn to Hourani's world— a universe outside space and time; a place of wonder, discovery, and freedom. Motivated by this kinship, Darwazah embarks on a journey to her homeland, Palestine: a place she has never known.

In this short documentary, Canadian poet Andrew Suknaski introduces us to Wood Mountain, the south central Saskatchewan village he calls home. In between musings on his poetry, which is tinged with nostalgia and the vast loneliness of the plains, the poet discusses the area’s multicultural background and Native heritage, as well as the customs and stories of these various ethnic groups.

Documentary about an unlikely youth chess team from Indianapolis who went on surprise the chess world with their success. The team, made up of young African Americans with no previous experience and led by their devoted teacher, went on to win the United States elementary school chess championship.

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.

A short film inspired by the poems of Giulia Bencivenga.

Spooky stuff is afoot in a French school. All of a sudden, 10-year-old Daniel finds himself alone with Marthe – their encounter is both tender and troubling, and it seems to take place in a sort of vacuum. In Marine Atlan’s dream-like feature film debut, children dance tango timelessly, recite poems and do the drill for an imaginary terrorist attack.

In the tradition of experimental genres such as the cut-up, collage, permutation, altered book, & erasure poem, ‘Burning Batteries’ dissects the idea of the book in both a literal & philosophical way. Books are usually thought of as 2D, static, fixed pieces of historically relevant narratives – ReVerse Butcher wants you to (re)think books as contested spaces for possible intervention, creative agency, & rebellion. She sees books as multi-layered places where multiple meanings hide behind the illusion of being locked-in by consensus reality.

A short film, based on a series of poems, about childhood, the break with parental, and war.

An unusual game of chess between two rivals.