Glory to the Queen

The Masters of Disaster

January 1986 •English

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.

Mind Games - The Experiment

January 2023 •English

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.

The Love For Wood

January 1979 •Dutch

A documentary about the top Dutch chess players of 1979

Rey Ardid: La gran partida

January 2013 •Spanish

Bunny Decides to Go

May 2023 •Azerbaijani

An intimate documentary about a trans woman's isolation and decision to leave her home country of Azerbaijan in pursuit of a safer life. Using the metaphor of a rabbit, that comes from her nickname "bunny," she presents her relationship with her family, country, music, and protest, intercut with home videos.

Caucasian Gates

January 1929 •Russian

Short documentary about the Georgian Military Road. Captures Ingush and Ossetian settlements of the early 20th century

If it Won’t Hold Water, it Surely Won’t Hold a Goat

January 2014 •English

"If it Won’t Hold Water, it Surely Won’t Hold a Goat" is an intimate meditation on the subversive nature of goats and their effect on the people who spend time with them. Centered on the story of the legendary Goat Man - a nomadic figure who spent most of his life walking the roads of Georgia with a wagon pulled by a herd of goats - this experimental documentary weaves together an interview with a goat farmer, footage of the daily rituals Johnson enacted with her own herd, and a poem about the Goat Man’s experimental and spectacular life.

Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi versus Karpov and the Kremlin

October 2018 •English

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.

Hennessy: Maurice Ashley, the Grandmaster

September 2020 •English

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

Album 61

June 2013 •Russian

The World Chess Championship is a juicy battle, rife with passion, power and money. Boris Gelfand has spent his entire life getting ready for this moment; he was raised to become a champion since the age of six. His father devoted all his life to cultivating Boris' talent while obsessively documenting the process. The photo albums tell the father's story as much as that of the son, revealing a simple truth about a man living his own dreams through his son under the Soviet regime. Can any child, given fine Soviet education, become a genius? And is becoming a genius worth the price?

They Called Him Mostly Harmless

February 2024 •English

When an unidentified hiker is found deceased in the Florida wilderness, authorities release a sketch. Multiple hikers call in claiming to have met the man. There's only one problem – he never told them his name. It would take two years, thousands of devoted internet sleuths, and a miracle of science to identify him, and that's when the trouble really starts.

Marcel Duchamp: A Game of Chess

January 1963 •French

Marcel Duchamp and French director Jean-Marie Drot discuss life, art, and chess.

A Collection of Images From My Last Year of Naivety

April 2024 •English

Three weeks to make three films. Filmed in my last semester before College. "Time", "One Night", "8x8".

Ein halbes Leben in Tuschetien

February 2020 •German

"Disney's California Adventure opened to the public on February 8, 2001, the second of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort. Richard Kind, Barry Bostwick, Colin Mochrie, Brad Sherwood, Patrick Warburton, Jacklyn Zeman, Nancy Lee Grahn, John Ingle, Erin Hershey, Kiko Ellsworth, John Lasseter, and Michael Eisner were all on hand and part of the Disney Channel look inside the new theme park. The special was directed by Jerry Reese and is a great look at Disney California Adventure the w

Mikhail Tal. From a Far

March 2016 •Russian

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.

Algorithms

June 2013 •English

Four blind Indian boys compete to become chess masters.

Olive

November 2023 •English

“Olive” is a short documentary that follows Olive Hagemeier, an energetic woman, on her daily routine of salvaging, repackaging and redistributing food, and occasional other types of “waste”, across Atlanta, GA. Presented in a quiet observational style, this film is both a character study of a committed and enigmatic volunteer, as well as an ethnographic work that places the audience in the heart of a decentralized, volunteer-run mutual aid network in a “post-COVID” American city.

Street Games

Invalid date •English

Several days in the lives, and profiles of, the owners and players of the open air street chess tables in downtown San Francisco. An informative and insightful portrait of a freely public, yet effectively anonymous, subculture: a unique and colorful patch of eccentric americana in the urban quilt of an international city. —Anonymous

This is Not a Game

June 2021 •English

Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?

Creating The Queen's Gambit

January 2021 •English

A fascinating character. Exquisite sets. A wig for every era. The stars, creators and crew reveal how the hit series about a chess prodigy came to life.