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.

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