Michaelle McLean oversees the Toronto Documentary Forum, an annual spring event at Hot Docs where doc makers pitch their projects to broadcasters in front of an audience. It resembles a game show, but it's become an effective means for filmmakers to navigate the complex world of international co-productions. From her vantage point, McLean tracks docs long before they're finished. Here are her picks for docs at TIFF this year:
Yahoo, I'll be in town for almost all of TIFF for the first time in several years so looking forward to taking it in, especially (bien sûr) Thom's doc programming. It all looks great but must I admit a special eagerness to see the four that were pitched at the Toronto Doc Forum last year -- yeah OK, I'm a bit biased. CHILDREN OF THE SUN (pictured) by Ran Tal -- the kibbutz is iconic as real live social experiments go and here's the chance to hear from the original insiders; THE DICTATOR HUNTER by Klaartje Quirijns because I want to know what makes this man tick; A JIHAD FOR LOVE by Parvez Sharma in the USA -- what a long brave journey Parvez has been on; and A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: THE EXILE JOURNEY OF ARIEL DORFMAN by Canadian Peter Raymont -- who wouldn't want to see his follow-up to "Shake Hands With the Devil."
Really glad to see the inclusion of three of the films in The Democracy Project too since I'm so impressed by this initiative in which commissioning editors from broadcasters around the globe, (notably Nick Fraser of the BBC and Mette Hoffmann now of DR), have been working together on a mini-series about probably the most important topic in the west today. I'll definitely be at the Why Democracy Doc Talk for the voluble and witty Mister Fraser, and oh look there's my excellent colleague Sean Farnel moderating the Doc Talk Covering War -- good choice and I'm sure he's not at all intimidated by moderating the talk show king. Oy, I'm exhausted already and TIFF hasn't started yet.
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