This year’s slate of 21 documentaries from 20 countries at the 51st Toronto International Film Festival leans into rising directors, along with Oscar winners Alex Gibney and Barbara Kopple. Their films “Musk” and “Union Town,” respectively, premiere first at the Venice Film Festival.
The TIFF documentary program explores a melange of subjects, from political activists and athletes to cowgirls and winemakers, and even alt-country musicians. Eighteen of the films are world premieres repped by the usual suspects — UTA, CAA, WME, Cinetic, Gersh, Dogwoof, and Outlook — seeking the best possible buyers during a depressed documentary market. “That is the challenge of today’s marketplace, for sure,” TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told IndieWire via Zoom.
Coming in with a distributor is high-profile filmmaker Gibney’s “Musk” (Bleecker Street, HBO), which is “notable for its scope,” said Powers. “Other reportage will look at one thing. It’ll look at X, or SpaceX, or Tesla. Alex is doing something on a more epic scale. That is why the film needs and deserves the length that it has: over three and a half hours.”
Another returning TIFF veteran is Kopple. “This marks the third in a thematic trilogy of Barbara’s work on labor organizing,” said Powers. “It goes all the way back to ‘Harlan County, USA,’ which played at the first Toronto Film Festival in 1976. So it’s a marvelous full circle. ‘Union Town’ refers to New York City. She’s following three efforts at labor organizing in New York: workers at UPS, workers at Amazon, and the delivery workers who work for apps like DoorDash and Grubhub. I don’t know anyone who isn’t regularly receiving packages or food deliveries. So in the same way that she did that for the coal industry in ‘Harlan County, USA,’ or for the meatpacking industry in ‘American Dream,’ she’s doing that for delivery workers in ‘Union Town.’”
The TIFF Documentary lineup will open with Rebeca Huntt’s “Rapinoe,” a profile of soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who led the U.S. women’s soccer team to two World Cup championships and an Olympic championship. After Huntt’s “Beba” broke out at TIFF 2021 and was picked up by Neon, Story Syndicate’s Dan Cogan approached Huntt, said Powers, “eager to work on her next project, and brought her together with Megan Rapinoe. She could have gone with any number of credentialed documentary filmmakers for a typical sports biography, but I’m told she was interested in Rebeca for the deeply personal style of storytelling that Rebeca did in ‘Beba,’ and this portrait is different from your normal sports biography, in the same way that Megan Rapinoe is different from your normal star athlete in her willingness to lead with her values.”
Rookie Andrew Morgan’s “Bleeding Hearts” tells the love story of Zella Day and Jesse Woods from the alt-country band Chaparelle. “For anyone who loved the TV show ‘Nashville,’” said Powers, “this plays like a documentary-style version of that, with great music and a compelling love story at the center of it. There’s music industry politics as this band Chaparelle tries to release their first album, ‘Western Pleasures,’ without the backing of a label.”
A possible breakout, said Powers, is “Edward Said: Between Worlds,” which traces the life of the late respected Palestinian-American writer, who has been gone for 23 years. Maiken Baird, who has been a producer on a number of Gibney’s films, “looks at the great intellectual author of Orientalism and the question of Palestine. Maiken is working with a team of Palestinian-American producers and also as consulting producer Edward Said’s daughter Najla Saeed.” Powers hopes this film will boost Said in the culture the way Oscar nominee “I Am Not Your Negro” invigorated James Baldwin’s legacy.
Shot in widescreen and produced by Sigrid Dyekjær, ex-Sundance programmer Harry Vaughn, and ex-NatGeo exec Chris Albert, “Low Lies the Land” follows three winemaking families in Northern Italy. “The backdrop is like an escapist travel fantasy,” said Powers. “But underneath that backdrop is a slow-burn suspense story as we follow three families who have worked this land for many generations and are now asking themselves, ‘What is the future here? Does the next generation want this job?’ It gets harder and harder to do, with the changing climate and increasing spells of drought and heat, and the risk of grapes dying on the vine. Meanwhile, in this Garden of Eden, there’s a real-life serpent of a real estate developer who’s going from family to family, representing some unknown buyer, rumored perhaps to be a Chinese investor, that is offering them a once-in-a-lifetime payout to give up their land. We watch these three families from one pruning season to the next. It’s suspenseful to figure out what they’re going to do.”
“Cheyenne” follows four cowgirls in a rodeo horse competition. “For nearly 100 years at American rodeos, women have been excluded from the bucking bronc competition,” said Powers. “It was considered too tough a sport for women to participate in. But that opened up not long ago, and this filmmaker has followed. You have to stay on top of this kicking horse in the saddle for eight seconds, which doesn’t sound like a long time, but when a massive beast is trying to throw you off, eight seconds is a long time. It’s a sport that teaches you how to fall down and get back up. That is a lesson that the four women in this film really embody.”
James Marcus Haney’s “Black Sunflowers” reveals the lives of young Ukrainians against the backdrop of war. Haney was supposed to make his debut at TIFF in 2013 when he was in his 20s but ran into music rights issues. Thirteen years later, he’s a successful music video director for the likes of Mumford and Sons and Elton John. When he wound up in Ukraine doing work for an NGO, he found his way into the youth culture of underground dance parties and street racing.
“He realized that what he was experiencing was a different view on the lives of young people in Ukraine than he felt was seen in the news,” said Powers. “Of course, war is a constant backdrop, but it’s not all that’s going on in their lives. He’s a fantastic visual stylist, and the war in Ukraine is in its fourth year. We certainly had a lot of submissions of different stories on this topic, but this was a different way of looking at young people in Ukraine than a documentary taking place strictly on the front lines.”
Perhaps the best title in the selection is “The Pervert’s Guide to Utopia,” the conclusion of a thematic trilogy that started with a film called “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema” (2006). The filmmaker Sophie Fiennes, who is the sister of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, is collaborating with the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek. “He’s something of a rock star in the culture theory academic world,” said Powers. “They set their structure in ‘Pervert’s Guide to Cinema’ 20 years ago, which is Žižek expounding on film clips through his unique perspective. In this film, he’s looking at films including ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘V for Vendetta’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ TV series and riffing on them, talking about themes of utopias and dystopias and fascism and revolution and zombies and vampires. It’s eclectic and entertaining.”
Other documentaries include “Re/Pair,” exploring the connections and tensions between American Black and Jewish communities; “Rescue,” depicting an extraordinary tale of a migrant trying to find his kidnapped wife and children; “The Ultra Runner,” examining the extreme ultramarathon runner Tiberiu Uşeriu; and “Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been,” profiling the acclaimed soul singer.
More than two-thirds of the program’s films are directed by women.
2026 TIFF Docs program (in alphabetical order):
“Ba’s Book” | Ashley Duong | Canada
World Premiere
“Black Sunflowers” | James Marcus Haney | Ukraine, USA
World Premiere
“Bleeding Hearts” | Andrew Morgan | USA
World Premiere
“Cheyenne” | Taimi Arvidson | USA
World Premiere
“Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” | Barry Avrich | Canada
World Premiere
“Edward Said: Between Worlds” | Maiken Baird | USA
World Premiere
“Gail” | Michael Maxxis | Canada
World Premiere
“Like Magic” | Melissa Saavedra Gil | Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay
World Premiere
“Low Lies The Land” | Emanuele Gerosa | Denmark, Italy
World Premiere
“Musk” | Alex Gibney | USA
North American Premiere
“Rapinoe” | Rebeca Huntt | United Kingdom, USA
World Premiere
“Re/Pair” | Lacey Schwartz Delgado | USA
World Premiere
“Rescue” | Sine Plambech | Denmark, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Iceland
World Premiere
“Still Night, Burning House” | Carol Nguyen | Canada
World Premiere
“Tehran, Under the Skin” | Afsaneh Salari | France, Iran, Sweden
World Premiere
“The Final Act” | Sophie Deraspe | Canada
World Premiere
“The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs” | Èlia Gasull Balada, Matteo Norzi | Peru, USA, Qatar
World Premiere
“The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias” | Sophie Fiennes | Ireland, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Netherlands,
Norway
North American Premiere
“The Ultra Runner” | Mila Aung-Thwin | Canada
World Premiere
“Turtle Island Rap” | Alexandra Lazarowich | Canada
World Premiere
“Union Town” | Barbara Kopple | USA
North American Premiere
