SNEAK PREVIEW. The most surprising doc of the year? Benda Bilili are a group of paraplegics who play great music featuring complex vocal interplay. They practice on the grounds of the Kinshasha Zoo and mostly live on the street. And have you seen their motorbikes, trikes and other assorted vehicles? It would seem to be an outrageously concocted fairy tale but it’s all for real. The two French directors get up close and personal and even play a key role in getting the band to record and in introducing them to a street kid named Roger who becomes the Jimi Hendrix of the group, playing the one-string satonge like a virtuoso. We see them through all kinds of tribulations on their improbable way to fame and glory. (PS)

In person: Renaud Barret and Florent de la Tullaye. The film opened the festival at the Thursday night Jubilee.

The 2011 True Life Fund selection. A real-life Midwestern superhero movie about violence interrupters with the Chicago anti-violence group CeaseFire.

A chimpanzee made to live with a human family. Director James Marsh was the 2011 True Vision Award recipient.

A dramatized documentary about a small town gone mad in the 1890s, by 2011 True Vision Award recipient James Marsh.