From the powerful opening notes of Reformat the Planet, the doc hooks you to your seat with curiosity. A series of catchy tunes made on old school video gaming devices, hacked and manipulated to their furthest capacity by a series of talented artists from around the globe who come together for a four day music festival showcasing all this 8-bit work, is portrayed as a love letter to the art of working within limitations and coming out with something new and different.

Starting with the a brief history of how the so-called “chiptunes” scene was born in New York City, filmmaker Paul Owens captures with nostalgic excitement a musical movement starting before our very eyes, through the help of a few keys artists who call themselves Nullsleep and Bitshifter. Using a program called LSDJ, they compose dance music on a set of original Gameboys. Finding a home in a NYC space called The Tank and set of artists creating similar sounds using a variety of devices – Nintendo samples in a techno program (Tugboat) and DOS built Nintendo cartridges playing 8-bit sequences over two guitars, a bass and drums (Anamanaguchi), just to name a few – Nullsleep and Bitshifter put together a community of nostalgic gamers and music-makers alike. After building several years of momentum, The Tank was able to gain enough popularity to put on the film’s titular showcase – one that isn’t likely to die out in years to come.

The rest of the film toggles between a series of performances from the festival itself – all of which prove to vary in the most unexpected ways – and artist interviews where they wax poetic on “the meaning of the scene” and the ways in which they predict it will develop. Notable insights include one artist sighting that chiptunes might be the new form of music that elders call noise that will one day turn into standard. Another ponders that in the future, the generation that grew up with Xboxs and PS2s will be making interesting music when taking apart that hardware.

The film could use a little more of the artists’ personality and a little less concert footage to flesh out its 82-minute running time, but that’s a small complaint when the beautifully shot, kinetic performances are so mesmerizing – the pop silliness of Japanese artist Hally’s live show or the pulse pounding power of the Stockholm disco scene as seen through the eyes of Random – especially to a viewer who is discovering chiptunes for the first time. Once it has its claws in you, Reformat is a hard movie not to love, just for the sheer innovation of the content itself. Informative, engaging and, most importantly, fun to listen to, both the musical genre and the film have carved out their own special little niche that they hold steadfast to, inviting others to come along and join in the fun.