The seventh season of the annual DOC NYC festival opens Thursday, bringing the largest slate of non-fiction films in the country to screens in Chelsea and Greenwich Village.

Since 2010, the festival has screened hundreds of films, some of which have gone on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary. But as festival co-founder and host of WNYC's "Documentary of the Week" Thom Powers tells Jami Floyd, the short list of films in the running for major awards is just a fraction of this year's offerings. Films featured this year cover subjects like Baltimore's step dance teams, the last year of the Obama Administration and the rise of the vigilante group the Guardian Angels. For anyone interested in making their own documentaries, there's also a conference called DOC NYC PRO that runs alongside the festival and features panels of experts discussing funding, distribution, and the craft of non-fiction filmmaking.

"To me, documentary is a way of intensifying your emotions. Maybe it’s your passion or your anger, but it’s a way to feel more engaged with the world," Powers says.