“I can see my lifetime piling up—reaching from my bedroom to the stars.” Nonfiction films shed light on our world, portraying real people, events and situations, but they can also “tell stories” as creatively as any fiction film. In Kevin Gordon’s Manufactured Fortunes (US, 5 mins), a fortune cookie’s journey from factory to restaurant resonates with man’s eternal quest for meaning. A project to understand the world’s simplest form of communication turns into a lesson in generosity in Jason Berger and Amy Laslett’s Good Karma $1 (US, 15 mins). A diver seeks to understand the spiritual connection between the ocean and humankind in Still (US, 11 mins) by Jose Tadeu Bijos. Nadav Kurtz’s Paradise (US, 10 mins), set among Chicago’s tallest skyscrapers, peers inside the lives of three immigrant window cleaners. Laura Green’s Installation (US, 8 mins) explores the boundaries between art and industry as it documents the process of constructing Richard Serra’s massive steel sculpture. A San Francisco piano player takes his music to the streets in Brandon Loper’s Unwieldy Beast (US, 6 mins), and Gary Weimberg’s Fathers & Sons, 10 True Stories (US, 8 mins) captures the father-son relationship from cradle to grave, from perfect to painful.

Film Note Writer: Kelly Clement