Doc Voices is grateful to Anisha Jhaveri who helped launch this newsletter and is now moving on to a new job. You can follow her work at Reel Simple. Now please welcome our new editor…
Bella Racklin here. I’ve been based in Los Angeles for four years after long stints in New York City and my hometown of London. For more than a year, I’ve worked behind the scenes at Pure Nonfiction developing industry partnerships and helping grow this newsletter to over 40,000 readers. I come to this role as a doc maker, currently completing my feature debut. I also work for the film restoration non-profit IndieCollect, wear producing hats on other projects, and take inspiration from the community at Brown Girls Doc Mafia.
All these experiences emphasize for me the ongoing need to share information and uplift filmmaker voices from around the world. During Anisha’s editorship of Doc Voices, I took away insights from the Sundance Distribution Report; the introduction to the Academy’s New Documentary Voters; and the survey of organizations in Color Congress.
Going forward, we’ll undertake more of these projects to share with you a Who’s Who of the documentary world.
This week, we look back at the latest edition of TIFF (aka the Toronto International Film Festival) by focusing on the critical reactions to ten of its world premiere documentaries, ranging from the bracing revelations of The Bibi Files to the warm embrace of Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers has served as TIFF’s lead international docs programmer for 19 years, working alongside associate programmer Lauren Clarke and a large team of colleagues with regional specialties including Kelly Boutsalis (Canada), Diana Cadavid (Latin America), Nataleah Hunter-Young (Africa and the Middle East), Dorota Lech (Central and Eastern Europe), and Norm Wilner (Canada).
In addition to the TIFF Docs section, the festival showcases nonfiction work across other sections including Galas, led by Cameron Bailey; the Platform competition, overseen by Robyn Citizen; Primetime for episodic work, programmed by Geoff MacNaughton; Special Presentations, helmed by Jane Schoettle; and Wavelengths for experimental cinema, curated by Andréa Picard and Jesse Cumming.
One of the back stories at festivals in recent years has been the increasing scarcity of film journalists and reviewers. They play a vital role in film culture and we salute those writers who keep at it. (For more on film critics, hear the Pure Nonfiction interviews with Elvis Mitchell and Alissa Wilkinson). This year at TIFF, it was heartening to see a wide range of reportage including:
Manohla Dargis at the New York Times on Dahomey and Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
Meredith Blake at the Los Angeles Times on Vice is Broke
Amanda Coletta and Jada Yuan at the Washington Post on Russians at War
David Smith at The Guardian on The Last Republican
Glenn Sumi at the Toronto Star on Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe
Aayush Sharma at the Tatler Weekend on The Last of the Sea Women
Over at the trade publications, there are several journalists who consistently deliver strong doc coverage. Among the notable bylines covering docs at TIFF were:
Anne Thomposon at Indiewire
Addie Moorfoot at Variety
Matthew Carey at Deadline
Steven Zeitchik at The Hollywood Reporter
Steve Pond at The Wrap
Katey Rich at The Ankler
Justin Anderson at Real Screen
Finally, I want to give special recognition to POV Magazine that’s grown to become North America’s most essential documentary publication under the stewardship of Pat Mullen. POV published over 60 documentary articles and reviews at TIFF that far exceeds any other outlet. Documentary fans should bookmark their website. For a sampling of the depth and breadth of POV’s coverage, see:
Susan G. Cole on Sudan, Remember Us
Marc Glassman on So Surreal: Behind the Mask
Barbara Goslowski on From Ground Zero
Jason Gorber on Viktor
Rachel Ho on Living Together
Liam Lacey on Will & Harper
Pat Mullen on The Freedom of Fierro
Courtney Small on Tata
Winnie Wang on Wavelengths
Below, I’ve highlighted 10 docs that had TIFF world premieres with a sampling of what reviewers had to say and updates on where those films go next.
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