Toronto fest features docs
The Toronto film fest is about more than just feature films. The thriving Real to Reel section has a slew of documentaries that could well feature in next spring's Oscar derby.
"Trumbo" uses a host of actors, including Michael Douglas, Liam Neeson, and Joan Allen to read the words of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. One of the Hollywood Ten, Trumbo refused to testify before Congress in 1947 about his political beliefs and was kept from working under his own name for more than a decade. Two of his scripts during that time, "Roman Holiday" and "The Brave One," won Oscars but it would be decades before the Academy recognized the real author.
Kevin MacDonald, who made his feature debut as a director with "The Last King of Scotland" which world premiered at the fest last year, returns with "My Enemy's Enemy," a documentary about Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. Barbie was the subject of the 1988 Oscar winning documentary "Hotel Terminus" and MacDonald won an Oscar in 1999 for his documentary "One Day in September" about the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Werner Herzog turned his 1999 Emmy nominated documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" into this summer's feature film "Rescue Dawn," which also premiered at last year's festival. He returns with "Encounters at the End of the World." For this, his first documentary since "Grizzly Man," the German director traveled to Antarctica with just one cameraman.
The Oscar nominated director of "Shine," Scott Hicks, examines the life of another Oscar nominee, composer Philip Glass, in "Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Acts." And TV legend Phil Donahue has teamed with documentary director Ellen Spiro for "Body of War," the story of one soldier's journey to and from Iraq. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam contributes two original songs to the score.
For the full list of documentaries CLICK HERE
