Not all of TIFF’s docs end up in TIFF Docs. In recent years, many of the festival’s most interesting documentaries have been screened in the avant-garde program, Wavelengths. This year is no different: with masters like Wang Bing, Ben Russell, Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor sharing the bill with younger talents like Sky Hopinka and Laura Huertas Millán, among others, Wavelengths
Silas (Canada/South Africa/Kenya, 80 min.) Dir. Anjali Nayar, Hawa Essuman Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) Liberian activist and political candidate Silas Siakor is a voice the world desperately needs. His commitment to preserve the environment and cultural life of Africa from multinational corporations is a heroic struggle. Silas chronicles Siakor’s fight against illegal logging
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me (USA, 100 min.) Dir. Sam Pollard Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) Sam Pollard, who directed Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, has an extensive list of credits as a film editor in addition to being a veteran director. He’s chopped and spliced over forty flicks in his
The Other Side of Everything (Serbia/France/Qatar, 100 min.) Dir. Mila Turajlic Mila Turajlic’s The Other Side of Everything is two things: on one level, it’s a first-person doc about a daughter’s relationship with her mother; on another, it’s the story of modern Serbia. The person who makes that move possible is Srbijanka Turajlic, the
The China Hustle Dir. Jed Rothstein Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) You saw The Big Short, right? Of course you did. And you came away with two thoughts: they ought to do something about this, and they won’t. Well get ready to think those thoughts all over again when you see Jed Rothstein’s brisk
The Final Year (USA, 89 min.) Dir. Greg Barker Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) Sometimes with documentaries it is painfully obvious that the film that ends up in theatres is not the film the makers thought they were making. And The Final Year, Greg Barker’s new film about the last year of the Obama
UNITERRUPTED’s The Carter Effect is a crowd pleaser directed by Hamilton, ON native Sean Menard. “I want people in Toronto to feel like it’s ours,” the director said of the film in his post-screening Q and A on Sunday to a packed house of enthusiastic viewers at TIFF. In order to understand The Carter Effect, one must have a
Long Time Running (Canada, 90 min.) Dir. Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas De Pencier Programme: Galas (World Premiere) Long Time Running has major expectations to fulfill given that the final performance of the Tragically Hip in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario in August 2016 provided a defining moment in contemporary Canadian culture. The CBC’s nation-wide
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (USA, 98 min.) Dir. Matt Tyrnauer Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere) It’s hard to divorce one’s opinion of subject Scotty Bowers from the documentary that shares his story. Bowers opens his little black book as he tells about his scandalous life as a Hollywood escort and pimp
Faces Places (Visages villages) (France, 90 min.) Dir. Agnès Varda, JR Programme: Masters (Canadian Premiere) Agnès Varda, effervescent photographer and iconic filmmaker (The Beaches of Agnes, The Gleaners and I ; La Pointe Courte; Cleo from 5 to 7; Mur Murs; One Sings the other doesn’t), and JR, young mysterious photographer and street artist