Doc Blog

Today is the last day of the festival, which means tomorrow is "rest day" and Monday is back to reality.   For some of us, the last ten days have included no sleep, a lot of coffee but lots of great films.

Having had the chance to write for this blog, I was able to see some amazing documentaries.  Some of the films I saw were already on my list of "must see;" for instance, Encounters at the End of the World, Trumbo, Captain Mike Across America,...

(more...)

Children of the Sun, a film by Ran Tal showed last night to at the Cumberland theatre.  In this very intimate look at the history of children born on the  kibbutzim, the audience is taken down memory lane with video footage taken from 1930-1970 along with photographs that depicted what life was like in this setting.

The director himself was born on a kibbutz; thus, this account is also a way of telling his own childhood story.  This film shows the "good and bad," according to Tal, of growing up in...

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

Child-like laughter bellowed through the ancient halls of the ROM tonight as Summercamp made its debut. The three-year project, by directors Sarah Price and Bradley Beesley, documents a delightful group of children over their three-week summer camp. Everyone left the theatre with a sense of warmth, and even got some exercise before the film as its directors and even some of its stars climbed on stage with blinking hats and fluorescent life-jackets, leading the standing audience in some musical, child-ercizing antics.

When introducing the film, TIFF doc...

(more...)

This is not a statement, just a quick reflection, late at night from Stockwell, South London. The guy in the flat below me is playing a very insistent trance music track and the soft but predictable bass is seeping through the floorboards like the smell of cooking. Perhaps this is his revenge for all the late nights he had to suffer at my hands, hearing the recorded voice of Slavoj Zizek (left), like a Balkan Zeus, booming away from above about "Libido!" - and unintelligible vibrations through the walls with...

(more...)

[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...

(more...)

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...

(more...)

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...

(more...)

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...

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

(more...)

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,...

(more...)

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...

(more...)

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...

(more...)

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...

(more...)