Doc Blog

[Today begins a series of postings by TIFF directors discussing different crafts that go into documentary making: archival research, shooting, editing, music - Ed.]

Dick. Shamus. Slewfoot. The slang varies, but the job is the same throughout decades of crime films -- navigating a noir-ish jungle of torpedoes, fakeloos, shysters, tomatoes and roscoes to obtain information.  

Although hardly as treacherous, making The U.S. vs. John Lennon did involve quite a bit of hard-boiled detection. Lennon was one of the...

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I first met Wyatt Troll,  my director of photography on Kurt Cobain  About A Son, more than a decade ago when we were both starting out in production.  We were both making music videos - I was an Executive Producer at a company that made low budget clips for indie rock bands and Wyatt was a DP and photographer just starting to make a name for himself.

Flash forward to last spring as I was thinking about who should shoot this film and I got in touch...

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The slippery fields that are documentary and experimental film have been flooded–dare I say littered– with theoretical posturings, both having been debated ad infinitum.

Bypassing those tired arguments altogether, I will simply list the remarkable (amount of) documentaries in this year’s Wavelengths programme. In the traditional sense, the avant-garde has always formed to rebel against mainstream structure, inertia (societal or stylistic), and conservative and extremist politics. And sometimes the politics of the image alone were (and are in face of preposterous “film is dead” current...

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Tashi Delek, as the Tibetans say! I just came across this journal entry from a tough day on the shoot, and I thought it might be a good warm-up for the premiere of Blindsight. This was just the training climb, the real climb was even gnarlier, but you’re going to have to wait for the movie for that…

June 1^st
Woke to rabid-sounding dogs barking all around the tent – at least something is managing to stay alive out there, not just rock and weather. And at least not lightning...

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Hi, all. I am, Haobam Paban Kumar from Manipur – the eastern most state of India bordering Myanmar. My documentary film A Cry in the Dark (left) is going to have its world premiere at TIFF. 

When Manipur became a part of India in 1949, a large portion of the Manipuri population was resistant, believing the merger to be an illegal and illegitimate annexation. To...

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This year, TIFF is pleased to present an especially strong line-up of  documentaries from South Asia. A Cry in the Dark (left) captures the violent repression of locals in Manipur, India protesting the rape and killing of a young woman under police custody. The film’s director, Haobam Paban Kumar, a native of the Eastern Indian province, captured escalating protests of shocking intensity - including shots of police beating unarmed activists and journalists in open sight. This protest, barely covered by the international press, demonstrates the power of independent documentary...

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Three of Hearts (left) had a very emotional world premiere at TIFF in 2004. Director Susan Kaplan, who also runs the fabulous New York City organization Docuclub, reflects on the build up to that screening...

SUSAN KAPLAN:
Three of Hearts took eight long years to produce and when we heard that the film was accepted to the Toronto International Film Festival for its world premier, we were both ecstatic and filled with trepidation. For a filmmaker,...

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Director Ross McElwee brought this documentary Bright Leaves (right) to TIFF in 2003. Here he recalls his experiences as a filmgoer at that festival...

ROSS MCELWEE:
I was invited to the 2003 Toronto Film Festival with my documentary, Bright Leaves.  Two moments stand out for me. When I attend the Toronto International Film Festival,  I try to see films that I assume will have little chance of theatrical distribution in the US. Having read an interesting description of the Belgian filmmaker  Thomas...

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Manufactured Landscapes (right) represents a tremendous collaboration
between director Jennifer Baichwal and cinematographer Peter Mettler as they follow photographer Edward Burtynsky taking his large-scale pictures on modern industrialization. The opening shot tracking through a Chinese factory will take your breath away. These three artists will come together for one of three Doc Talk panels on Sept 12, sponsored by HBO. This new initiative is open to TIFF Industry pass holders .

Another Doc Talk panel will focus on "War and Conflict" featuring filmmakers
Michael Tucker (The Prisoner)...

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My Life As a Terrorist: The Story of Hans-Joachim Klein (left) will have its North American premiere at TIFF this year. In 1975, Klein joined the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal in a kidnapping of OPEC officials in Vienna. Klein came to regret his involvement, went into hiding for two decades and was eventually arrested. After getting out of prison, he told his life story to Dutch filmmaker Alexander Oey for this remarkable documentary.

The film was brought to my attention by...

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Amanda Micheli's Double Dare (right) was a true crowd pleaser at TIFF 2004. Sales agent Josh Braun worked on the film's distribution deals. But I can not say whether those facts have anything to do with his hazy recollection of a legendary party that may or may not have taken place that year...

JOSH BRAUN:
Some nights in Toronto are more memorable than others notwithstanding the fact that some nights...

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The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (right) is sure to make as many waves at TIFF this year as the directors’ previous film Gunner Palace did when it debuted here in 2004. In one memorable moment in Gunner Palace, director Michael Tucker filmed US forces making a house raid. One Iraqi prisoner looks up at the camera and says, “I’m a journalist too” before he gets led away. That moment haunted Tucker. He always wondered who the...

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Wyclef Jean is among the many great performers expected to make an appearance at TIFF this year in support of a documentary. Jean composed music for Asger Leth’s stunning doc Ghosts of Cite Soleil (left), about gang leaders in Haiti during the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Continuing our series of TIFF anecdotes, George Hickenlooper recalls another memorable performance at TIFF. Hickenlooper served as a creative consultant on Ghosts of Cite Soleil. In 2003,...

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At last year’s TIFF, one of my great memories was seeing the world premiere of 51 Birch Street (left), Doug Block’s intensely personal film about his parents’ marriage. Doug has been a longtime supporter of other filmmakers through his web site D-Word.com. So it was great to see him get the respect he deserves.

After the festival his producing team traveled a long, winding road to secure theatrical distribution. Now the film will debut in US theaters this...

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JEFFREY BLITZ:
Toronto was the first film festival where theatrical distributors took note of Spellbound and it was enormously exciting because of that. The night it all came to a head, I remember sitting in the lobby...

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Here come the Dixie Chicks (left) and dozens of other great documentary subjects. Tune in here to read diary entries from the programmers and doc makers in the festival with daily updates on world premieres, parties and business deals.

This is my first year as the Toronto International Film Festival’s documentary programmer. But I’ve been coming as a visitor to the Festival since 1988 when I attended to catch Ron Mann’s Comic Book Confidential. (This year Mann...

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