2013 Festival Highlights
Alphée of the Stars
Alphée shares much in common with other five year olds. She likes to laugh, and to play and she has a vivid imagination. Unlike other kids, she has an extremely rare genetic disorder—Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome—that affects neuromuscular development. Her parents, filmmaker Hugo Latulippe and Laure Waridel, have witnessed Alphée defy medical expectations. They have such a deep belief in their daughter’s potential that they decide to leave their hectic lives in Quebec and spend a year in a Swiss village to provide Alphée with an integrated education in a progressive preschool. From this transition, a moving...
Cloudy Mountains
It’s asbestos mining season in Lop Nur, Western China. Wang Hongbin and his father spend the summer months working in this massive chain of steaming mountains, happy to earn a living despite the...
Dragon Girls
In perfect unison, over 20, 000 students train in the ancient Shaolin Kung Fu discipline at a school outside Beijing. Follow young female warriors-in-training who battle under immense pressure, with...
A Whole Lott More
When the auto crisis hits, Lott Industries has a year to either reinvent or close down. Since all its 1200-plus employees have developmental disabilities, far more than jobs are at stake in this touching...
Muscle Shoals
Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Gregg Allman, Bono and more share how the tiny backwater town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, made them stars in one of the greatest untold American music stories.
When I Walk
Before the sudden onset of Multiple Sclerosis, when he was 25, filmmaker Jason DaSilva travelled the world. Now, he now struggles to stand and share his setbacks and achievements as he fights to live his...
Blood Brother
Surprised by his friend’s sudden move to India to care for HIV-positive orphans, the director follows on what he suspects is a self-centered journey of self-discovery, only to find both their lives...
