The world premiere of Rebeca Huntt’s Rapinoe, about the activist and former co-captain of the US women’s football team Megan Rapinoe, will open TIFF Docs next month. Two-thirds of the 21-strong roster hail from women filmmakers.
Rapinoe is represented for sales by UTA Independent Film Group and takes its place among a lineup culled from approximately 900 submissions.
TIFF Docs entries include sales titles such as Emanuele Gerosa’s Italian wine-making feature Low Lies The Land at Dogwoof, and Canadian filmmaker Michael Maxxis’s Gail at WME Independent, which follows a superfan of the Canadian alt rock band Our Lady Peace. Jason Reitman served as executive producer.
Among the world premieres are Lacey Schwartz Delgado’s Re/Pair exploring the relationship between American Black and Jewish communities; and Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, which profiles the acclaimed soul singer and hails from Barry Avrich, the Canadian behind last year’s controversial selection The Road Between Us.
Alex Gibney’s Musk, about divisive billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, receives its North American premiere following the upcoming world premiere in Venice. TIFF has scheduled a 10-minute intermission during the film, which clocks in at close to four hours. The other North American premiere is Union Town from Barbara Kopple, which concludes the veteran filmmaker’s thematic trilogy of films about labour that began with the screening of Harlan County, USA at the first TIFF in 1976 and continued with American Dream in 1990.
“Barbara opened a door for women filmmakers,” said TIFF Docs lead programmer Powers. ”Two-thirds of the documentaries we’re announcing today are directed by women and the fact that women are so well represented in documentary is due in no small part to the career that Barbara Kopple forged.”
There are no films explicitly about the subject of AI in this year’s lineup, however Powers and his team routinely ask each submitting filmmaker how they made their features to ensure human authorship, facts, authentic expression, and archival documents are protected. “The basic factor is transparency in what you’re doing,” he notes, adding hypothetically: “If you want to create a whole historical scene out of AI give it a try, but let us know that’s what we’re watching.”
Turning to the documentary sector in general Powers said, “We see an international breadth and depth of storytelling. The state of documentary distribution is an area that has room for more innovation. There are hopeful signs. This fall Bleecker Street will take Musk out to theatres in an extremely ambitious undertaking. TIFF Special Presentations will show Everest: The Other Side from the Free Solo team of Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. That’s going to get a robust Imax release from Disney.”
Powers continued, “There’s definitely a glass-half-full argument that you can make for documentary. I used to be a documentary maker myself 20 years and the degree of audience interest in documentary today is something I could have only dreamed about.”
In years gone by the word “documentary” was something to be avoided. When Miramax released Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line in 1988 it was spoken of as a new kind of non-fiction filmmaking. “Today, the very word ‘documentary’ is a selling point,” the TIFF Docs lead programmer said. “When you take a plane to come to Toronto, chances are one of the category selections on your in-flight entertainment will be documentary. That is a lot of progress and we can take that progress and go even further with it.”
The Shorts programme includes Camille Summers-Valli’s character study Untitled Woman starring Julianne Nicholson and Charles Melton; Michael Del Monte’s Fight Kid executive-produced by Derek Cianfrance; Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s stop-motion animated comedy The End executive-produced by and starring Noomi Rapace alongside castmates Denis Lavant and Alexander Skarsgård; and Stellan Skarsgård in Anna Mantzaris’s Annecy-winning stop motion Please.
TIFF runs September 10-20.
TIFF Docs
Selections appear in alphabetical order below (world premieres except where indicated):
Ba’s Book (Can)
Dir. Ashley Duong
Black Sunflowers (Ukr-USA)
Dir. James Marcus Haney
Bleeding Hearts (USA)
Dir. Andrew Morgan
Cheyenne (USA)
Dir. Taimi Arvidson
Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been (Can)
Dir. Barry Avrich
Edward Said: Between Worlds (USA)
Dir. Maiken Baird
Gail (Can)
Dir. Michael Maxxis
Like Magic (Col-Arg-Uru)
Dir. Melissa Saavedra Gil
Low Lies The Land (Den-It)
Dir. Emanuele Gerosa
Musk (USA)
Dir. Alex Gibney
North American premiere
Rapinoe (UK-USA)
Dir. Rebeca Huntt
Opening selection
Re/Pair (USA)
Dir. Lacey Schwartz Delgado
Rescue (Den-It-Ger-Swe-Ice)
Dir. Sine Plambech
Still Night, Burning House (Can)
Dir. Carol Nguyen
Tehran, Under The Skin (Fr-Iran-Swe)
Dir. Afsaneh Salari
The Final Act (Can)
Dir. Sophie Deraspe
The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs (Peru-USA-Qat)
Dirs. Èlia Gasull Balada, Matteo Norzi
The Pervert’s Guide To Utopias (Ire-UK-Slov-Neth-Nor)
Dir. Sophie Fiennes
North American premiere
The Ultra Runner (Can)
Dir. Mila Aung-Thwin
Turtle Island Rap (Can)
Dir. Alexandra Lazarowich
Union Town (USA)
Dir. Barbara Kopple
North American premiere
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