In the last century, 94% of vegetable seed varieties have disappeared, leaving our food supply dangerously vulnerable to blight and famine. While biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, thankfully, an inspiring ensemble of farmers, scientists, and seed savers are fighting a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food and protect our 12,000 year-old food legacy.  SEED tells their harrowing and heartening story – and the larger history of human agriculture – with equal parts whimsy and rage. -Chris Metzler

Find out what makes these old guys tick including a bee keeper, a black panther, a boxer and a bondsman, a model with MS and SF’s legendary “Godfather of Skating.

The Bay Area is well represented with film students from Stanford, SF State and SOTA High School and stories that remind us of the San Bruno explosion, the struggle to save the Hand of Peace, the drought and the power of Cumbia.

Artists, nuns, actors and fat activists are all capable of being bad asses and make up some of the amazing women in these shorts.

Launched in 1982 by three friends at a Houston diner, Compaq Computer set out to build a portable personal computer. Standing in their way? IBM, the world’s most powerful tech company whose dominance of the computing sector was unrivaled. Many had tried cloning the industry leader’s code, only to be trounced by IBM and its high-priced lawyers. SILICON COWBOYS explores the remarkable David vs. Goliath story, and eventual demise, of Compaq, an unlikely upstart who altered the future and whose revolutionary ideas paved the way for the modern-day ubiquity of digital technology. Directed by Oscar®-nominated director Jason Cohen, this evocative film offers a fresh look at the explosive rise of the 1980’s PC industry, Compaq's three maverick founders, and is a refreshing alternative to the familiar hagiographic narratives of Jobs, Gates, and Zuckerberg. -Chris Metzler

SF DocFest alums Ryan Seitz and Daniel Skaggs ("Freeload") brings us another gaze into the life of group you never thought you’d get to know or even knew existed.  For over a decade, Russ “Rock Bottom” Byars and Kurt “Mountain Man” Steiner have endured a rivalry that lifted competitive stone skipping to unthinkable heights. Tested by physical ailments, emotional hardships and the rise of young talent, these obscure legends fight to cement their place in the record books of Stone Skipping. -Jennifer Morris

Shot over the course of three years, SMART follows the Los Angeles Specialized Mobile Animal Rescue Team, the only rescue team of it’s kind in the country. They are a group of highly trained, adrenaline-fueled professionals who risk life and limb to rescue animals! Lead by Armando Navarrete, they save anything and everything, wild or domestic, from an array of dangerous situations. But the rescues come at great cost, both on personal and professional levels. You will find them lifting a horse from a river by helicopter, tranquilizing a deer in Pee-Wee Herman's back yard and even falling five stories from the top of a tree.  -Jennifer Morris

Set in LAPD’s South the film explores the unsung bond created by the homicide detectives of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Criminal Gang Homicide Division and the local community’s anti-violent crime activists including Southern California Ceasefire Committee, Gang Talk Radio, and Justice for Murdered Children. Going against the grain of commonly perceived police & community relations, they traffic in the aftermath of murder, stepping into the breach of loss for next of kin, investigating the crimes, and forging relationships with residents left to live amidst persistent violence. -Jennifer Morris

At their university in Eastern Europe, they are future bankers, journalists and politicians. In America, they are just “the help.”  From Martha’s Vineyard to Myrtle Beach, thousands of international students descend upon summer resorts and tourist towns in the U.S. to clean hotel rooms, wash dishes, and make pizza for Americans on vacation. Filmmaker Melody Gilbert (SF DocFest Non-Fiction Vanguard Award recipient - 2008) looks beyond the nametags to the young and impressionable individuals who come to the U.S. to chase a dream. -Chris Mettzler