Programmatic advertising systems are responsible for placing the vast majority of digital ads on the web, using sophisticated algorithms to automatically match products with potential customers. Only a handful of big tech and social media companies control this technology, helping sustain their monopoly over this multi-billion dollar industry.

‘The Click Trap’ reveals how this same digital advertising economy is also helping to fuel scams, dis- and mis- information and extremist hate online, making dodgy and even criminal “content creators” rich in the process. Drawing on expert testimony, it investigates what real world impact digital advertising is having on our societies and questions whether there’s a safer and more ethical way to do business.

Is it time to regulate online advertising?

Directed by Peter Porta

90 minutes

No one fights to preserve a multiplex, but some people will risk everything to save a marquee. Through booms and busts, Delft Theatres Inc. - and its innovative gem, The Nordic - endured in Marquette for almost 100 years, even as the world changed endlessly around them.

Local teenager Bernie Rosendahl’s modern crusade as an adult to restore the historic arthouse to its former glory leads filmmakers to discover a hidden cinema empire in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Portraying the fascinating history of motion pictures through one iconic screen - "Marqueetown" is the true story of chasing your dreams, redefining failure and success, and reembracing the enduring magic of movies.

Directed by Joseph Beyer and Jordan Anderson

83 minutes

"Wildboy" chronicles the incredible journey of Brando, a young man with ADHD, who sets out on adventures around the globe to rediscover himself. At 18, he spends two years walking New Zealand’s entire coastline, sparking a decade of daring challenges like skiing across Greenland and biking through Australia’s Outback. Alongside breathtaking landscapes and extreme physical challenges, the film explores his struggles with identity, mental health, and purpose, offering a raw, inspiring tale of resilience and self-discovery.

Directed by Toby Schmutzler

92 minutes

Rogers Pass represents one of the most complicated avalanche programs in the world. Ski touring through its storied terrain is only possible thanks to the visionary mountain guide who architected the ski system years ago, and the woman she mentored who’s now at the helm of that avalanche program. The stakes are higher than most skiers could ever imagine.

Directed by Andrea Wing

14 minutes

Stud Country, the largest queer country western line dancing event in America, was created to preserve Los Angeles' little known 50+ year queer line dancing tradition. Despite its success and fiercely committed community, the event is set to lose its venue due to gentrification.

Directed by Lina Abascal & Alexandra Kern

11 minutes

Teach Me features scenes of women celebrating their spiritual connection to water in a new song called "Water Song." The music video follows local creatives, international indigenous water protectors gathered together to celebrate being creative beings during the 50th Anniversary festival at Ruigoord, a community outside of Amsterdam formed by squatters in 1973 ultimately becoming a harmonious magnet for seekers of music, freedom and art.

Directed by Keri Pickett

5 minutes

On a dry lakebed in the Mojave, a group of friends build a practical scale model of time:

13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution, and our place within it.

Directed by Alex Gorosh

10 minutes

North of the 51st parallel, where the boreal forest opens onto an Arctic island, the snow-capped peaks of Uapishka Mountains watch over the Nitassinan of Pessamit. In the depths of winter, a group of Innu and non-indigenous adventurers attempt to cross this mountain range on snowshoes, in complete autonomy. Confronted with the immensity of the territory, the rigours of the northern climate and the impetuous breath of the tundra, they discover themselves in a new way, make friends and unite to better chart their course. As the miles go by, the adventure reveals a space for encounters, sharing and reconciliation.

Directed by Marie France L’Ecuyer

28 minutes

A blackmail email prompts a filmmaker to explore the intersection of shame and masturbation.

Directed by Eugene Kolb

14 minutes

An Indigenous women’s motorcycle group rides to end the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women while a member of their community desperately searches for her missing sister and tries to heal her shattered family.

Directed by Katrina Lillian Sorrentino

18 minutes

Welcome Home celebrates the incredible story of wolf reintroduction to Colorado. When the people of Colorado voted to return wolves to the state, they set in motion a unique conservation success story. Welcome Home shows the value of returning this iconic and beloved carnivore to Colorado and how the state is recovering wolves in a thoughtful way that cares for wildlife and people.​

Directed by Alan Lacy

21 minutes