Doc Blog

On the second of the Doc Talk series, Covering War, we had a chance to listen to Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro and Michel Tucker discuss the rewards and challenges of making documentaries about war and its consequences.

Donahue and Spiro premiered their documentary Body of War at this year's festival.  Donahue stated that after watching the Iraq War vote on C-SPAN in 2002, he wanted to do something to voice his concern for the state of affairs in the United States.  He said he was in "shock...

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The series Doc Talks was open to public audiences this year.  Each one gives us a chance to hear what filmmakers encounter while creating a documentary.  This year, the series has three foci: biographies, filming war and politics.

The first talk dealt with filming biographies; hence, its title Complicated Lives.  The biographies showcased at this year's Reel to Reel program have exposed us to individuals who have been blacklisted, exiled from their homes, achieved amazing success in their craft and in their personal lives.  The panel consisted of Peter Askin (director of (more...)

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to attend the Maverick session Everything to Gain: A Conversation with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.   This was a chance to hear what President Carter and his wife have been doing since he left office over twenty years ago.  The conversation was moderated by Allan Gregg from TVO; it was also taped so that it can be aired at a later date on said station.

Where does one begin to describe all that the Carters have been able to accomplish?  Well, the most important thing would be to...

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Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure to hear a panel (pictured here)composed of Adam Sterling (Co-founder, Sudan Divestment Task Force), Don Cheadle (actor/activist), Ted Braun (director, Darfur Now), Cathy Schulman (producer, Darfur Now), and Mark Jonathan Harris (producer, Darfur Now) discuss the status of Darfur today.  The discussion titled The Time is Now: A Conversation about Darfur is part of the Mavericks sessions presented at this year's festival.

The session began with a speech by Luis Moreno-Ocampo (Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague).  His words were meant to...

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The sold-out session began with clips from the film.  Thus, setting the stage for a very open conversation about religion, politics and the connection between the two.  Moderated by RTR programmer, Thom Powers, he began by asking why make this film?  Charles called it a "passion project," which turned out to be more ambitious than they thought.

To give us more background information, Maher and Charles shared some tidbits about their upbringing.  On the...

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The second of three Doc Talks today focused on collaboration, featuring the creators of Manufactured Landscapes discussing how a project comes toghether with such difficult creative bridges to build. The film's director Jennifer Baichwal said it was very different to look at an image through the eyes of a photographer, which she needed to do in creating this film focused on the work of famed Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky.

When Burtynsky found out a film was in the works about him, he was hesitant to be part of a project full...

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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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