{"id":39729,"date":"2025-09-03T00:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T00:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39729\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T00:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T00:21:07","slug":"tiff-documentary-lineup-preview-with-boss-thom-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/39729\/","title":{"rendered":"TIFF Documentary Lineup Preview With Boss Thom Powers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Toronto<\/a> Film Festival gets underway Thursday with a couple of world premiere documentaries:\u00a0John Candy: I Like Me<\/a>, directed by Colin Hanks, and\u00a0The Eyes of Ghana<\/a>, directed by two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the 50th\u00a0edition of TIFF<\/a>, and it\u2019s a big anniversary too for documentary programmer Thom Powers<\/a>, who is celebrating his 20th\u00a0anniversary with the festival. On the new episode of Deadline\u2019s Doc Talk<\/a> podcast, we welcome Powers for an in-depth discussion of the TIFF<\/a> nonfiction lineup. A contingent of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmakers will unveil new work at the festival \u2013 along with Proudfoot, there\u2019s Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin with\u00a0Love+War; Laura Poitras with\u00a0Cover-Up, the film she co-directed with Mark Obenhaus about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh; Raoul Peck, who brings his\u00a0Orwell: 2+2=5\u00a0to Toronto after a Cannes world premiere; Tamara Kotevska heads to TIFF for the North American premiere of\u00a0The Tale of Silyan, while Gianfranco Rosi dips\u00a0Below the Clouds\u00a0for the International premiere of his film exploring \u201cthe populace living in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of volcanic films, one that could trigger a dynamic reaction in Toronto is\u00a0The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue<\/a>, directed by Barry Avrich. It recounts the story of retired Israeli Gen. Noam Tibon, who sprang into action on October 7 to save his family from the Hamas terrorist attack. Powers tells us what he knows about the behind-the-scenes drama at TIFF that saw the film invited, then disinvited<\/a>, then reinvited<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tPaula Deen<\/a>, who became a Food Network star but then got the boot after a past use of a racial slur came to light, will be in Toronto for the world premiere of\u00a0Canceled: The Paula Deen Story. Powers offers insights about the film directed by Billy Corben, who came to TIFF last year with\u00a0Men of War.<\/p>\n

\n\tPowers wrote the TIFF program description for\u00a0Canceled: The Paula Deen Story, as well as thumbnails for many other documentaries in the lineup. Over his 20 years at TIFF, he has composed more than 350 of them, a process that requires a deft touch \u2013 summarizing the documentary, providing necessary background and engaging the interest of festivalgoers while not giving away too much. He has collected much of that writing in the new book\u00a0Mondo Documentary<\/a>, which releases Wednesday from Pure Nonfiction. Powers shares details with us and reads from one of his favorite pieces \u2013 a description of Corben\u2019s\u00a0Men of War.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s on the latest edition of the Doc Talk podcast<\/a>, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave,\u00a0Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline\u2019s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley\u2019s N\u014d Studios.<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including\u00a0Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0iHeart<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Apple<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Film Festival gets underway Thursday with a couple of world premiere documentaries:\u00a0John Candy: I Like Me,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[30424,30425,18,117,19,17,327,30426,30427,30428,11523,15935,13245],"class_list":{"0":"post-39729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-doc-talk","9":"tag-doc-talk-podcast","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-paula-deen","16":"tag-the-road-between-us-the-ultimate-rescue","17":"tag-thom-powers","18":"tag-tiff","19":"tag-toronto","20":"tag-toronto-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}