Social & External
Himself
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.
The first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.
The extraordinary life and career of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a brilliant and charismatic, but also rebellious, favorite son of the Soviet Union.
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.
The thrilling, inside story of the psychology of sporting winners. Filmed during the world's strongest open chess tournament ever, "King's Gambit" reveals the tension, jubilation and heartache of professional chess and top-level sports competitors.
Mikhail Tal. From a Far is a documentary exploring the unpredictable and tragic life of the genius world chess champion Mikhail Tal, Riga's native son. Mikhail Tal becomes the youngest world chess champion at 23. The same year, he was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease and given only one year to live. Through sheer will and reckless abandon he managed to live another 40 years, filling them with a string of remarkable chess successes, unexplainable failures, amorous conquests and a life-threatening game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
Against the backdrop of Cold War, Glory to the Queen reveals stories of four legendary female chess players from Georgia who revolutionized women’s chess across the globe and became Soviet icons of female emancipation.
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.
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.
Two brothers, raised by a chess master, must battle head to head in the world's most competitive chess tournament.
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
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.
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.
A chess champion and a poker hustler find themselves in a battle of wits after discovering a box full of money in a dumpster.
American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.
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.
Two chess champions have a secret match to decide once and for all which of them is the better player.
A short documentary film that starts from the story of Montxo Rejano and approaches people excluded from society who live like shadows, in a kind of limbo, in a kind of eternal night and condemned to perpetual waiting and to subsist in a world without light. They once had lives like everyone else, but in the cold and the dark it's very easy to forget that.
When a limping elephant is reported in the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project, conservation pilot Keith Hellyer springs into action. Alongside rangers and vets, he undertakes the dangerous task of locating, darting, and treating the injured animal - offering a lifeline in the face of human-wildlife conflict.
The American Southwest is a feature length blue chip natural history film narrated by indigenous environmentalist Quannah Chasinghorse. The movie journeys down the mighty Colorado River, examining the astonishing beauty and biodiversity of the region, while confronting the environmental destruction from dams and the perilous fate of the river. The story is told through never-before-seen wildlife sequences such as beavers building wetlands, condors recovering from the brink, and the potential return of Jaguars to American soil. The film beautifully advocates for better management of the river and increased wildlife conservation efforts in the iconic landscapes of The American Southwest.
