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Neither Israel nor Hamas is referenced by name in From Ground Zero, an anti-war collage film conceived, produced, and curated by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi. Its voices and images belong solely to the citizens of Gaza affected by those warring ethnonational entities’ choices. Throughout the 22 shorts that comprise the film, the roar of war planes and drones is near-constant, the percussion of semi-distant explosions and gunfire arrhythmic, yet those who document their daily reality in a humanitarian crisis zone—many of whom recall the 2014 Gaza War, the most devastating event in the strip prior to 2023—struggle only to preserve what familiar beats they can of their lives from before this latest onslaught.

The styles and technologies employed by the different directors are variable: Footage was shot on both handheld cameras and smartphones, and many of the shorts weave fluidly between documentary, drama, and even music video as non-actors reenact their...

A profile of the late Irish literary giant Edna O’Brien and a story about the haenyeo fisherwomen of South Korea are among the 21 TIFF Docs selections unveiled by Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday.

Joining Sinéad O’Shea’s Blue Road - The Edna O’Brien Story and Sue Kim’s The Last Of The Sea Women are Men Of War, an exploration of a failed coup in Venezuela from the team behind Cocaine Cowboys, and The Last Republican from Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink, who looks at how former Congressman Adam Kinzinger broke ranks and stood up to Donald Trump.

Nonfiction films about conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Venezuela, as well as documentaries about politician Adam Kinzinger, Irish writer Edna O’Brien and disability rights activist Patrice Jetter will screen at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, event organizers announced on Wednesday.

TIFF’s Docs program will consist of 21 films, two-thirds of them world premieres and 16 of them available for distribution. “The lineup is like holding up a mirror to what’s going on in the world today, which includes a lot of different things,” TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told TheWrap.

The opening night film will be Eddie Huang’s “Vice Is Broke,” in which the former Vice host details the rise and fall of that media organization.

Other films include “From Ground Zero,” an anthology consisting of 22 short films made over the past year by directors who live in Gaza; Anastasiia Bortuali’s “Temporary Shelter,” about Ukrainian refugees; Hind Meddeb’s “Sudan,...

Eddie Huang, creator of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat comedy, is set to open the Toronto Film Festival’s TIFF Docs sidebar with a world premiere for Vice is Broke, a documentary about the rise and fall of Vice Media.

Huang will chronicle events leading up to Shane Smith’s Vice Media, a scrappy media player once valued at $5.7 billion, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 to open the way for a sale of the company.

There’s also world bows in Toronto’s documentary strand for Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story, directed by Sinéad O’Shea, who did hours of interviews with the legendary Irish novelist in the last year of O’Brien’s life; Jen Gaiten and Screwball doc maker Billy Corben bringing Men of War, about a former U.S. Green Beret caught up in a failed 2020 coup to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; and...