The Toronto International Film Festival hasadded thirteen documentary world premieres to its line-up, including SydneyPollack's Sketches Of Frank Gehry.Alex Hinton's Pick Up The Mic, a lookat gay rappers, and Lian Lunson's profile of Canadian troubadour Leonard Cohen,Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man,featuring performances by Cohen, Nick Cave, Rufus Wainwright and U2.
Twenty-four of the titles will screen inthe Real to Reel programme, while Pollack's Gehry portrait, a seven-territoryinternational co-production, will screen in Masters.
Other non-fiction world premieres includeJosh Gilbert's A/K/A Tommy Chong, anexploration of the US sting operation against comedian Tommy Chong of Cheechand Chong fame; The Heart Of The Game,a six-year chronicle of a girl's high-school basketball team that promises tobe a female version of Hoop Dreams; Danishdocumentary Overcoming, by TomasGislason, about a team in the Tour de France bicycle race.
Indian filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia's
Austrian title We Feed The World sees filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer investigate theparadox of continuing mass starvation despite a burgeoning global foodindustry; the Swiss filmmaker Christian Frei's The Giant Buddhas uses the Taliban's destruction of ancientstatuary as the departure for an exploration of fanaticism and faith. On asimilar theme, The Smell Of Paradise,a Netherlands-Poland coproduction, by Mariusz Pilis and Marcin Mamon, is a10-years-in-the-making attempt to understand the root causes of Islamistterrorism.
Other world premiere titles are PhilipGroning's portrait of life in a French monastery, Into Great Silence; Doug Block's 51 Birch Street, his exploration of his parents' 55-year marriage;and Black Sun, from UK director GaryTarn, an essay of an artist's sudden blindness; Twelve Disciples Of Nelson Mandela, a US-South Africa coproductionabout a fallen foot soldier of the African National Congress and the son whoseeks out his past; and from Thailand, 3Friends, which follows three young men on the cusp of adulthood.
The festival also announced twointernational and five North American premieres as well as some Sundance titlessuch as Eugene Jarecki's prize-winning exploration of the US militaryindustrial complex, Why We Fight, andThe Devil And Daniel Johnston, apowerful portrait of a musician suffering from manic depression.
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