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The Toronto International Film Festival unveiled the full documentary slate for the 50th edition of the festival, which will take place from Sept. 4-14.

The TIFF 50 Docs program features new films from highly acclaimed filmmakers, including Academy Award winners Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo), Ben Proudfoot (The Last Repair Shop), and Laura Poitras (Citizenfour), and Academy Award nominee Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro).

The program will open with Proudfoot’s The Eyes of Ghana, which profiles influential Ghanian filmmaker Chris Hesse and is executive-produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. World premieres coming to TIFF as sales titles include: The Balloonists, directed by John Dower, capturing adventurers who set out to circle the globe in a balloon; A Life Illuminated, directed by Tasha Van Zandt, following marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder on a stunning journey to the ocean depths; Whistle, directed by Christopher Nelius, portraying a competition of champion whistlers; Nuns vs.

Documentaries about journalists Seymour Hersh, Lynsey Addario, and the late Fatma Hassona are heading to the 50th edition of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

TIFF‘s Docs program gets underway Sept. 4 and will feature 23 feature docs from 18 countries. The program will open with the world premiere of two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Proudfoot’s “The Eyes of Ghana,” about 93-year-old Chris Hesse, a cinematographer who served as the personal filmmaker for Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Barack and Michelle Obama-led shingle Higher Ground executive produced the doc.

“The film is a love letter to filmmaking and the efforts of Chris Hesse to not only document a chapter of history, but also his work to preserve that footage,” said Thom Powers, lead TIFF documentary programmer.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and co-director Mark Obenhaus’s “Cover Up,” about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, will make its Canadian premiere at TIFF after a...

Oscar-winning director Ben Proudfoot’s The Eyes of Ghana, executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, is set to open the Toronto Film Festival’s Doc sidebar, organizers said Wednesday.

Nova Scotia-raised and L.A.-based Proudfoot won his two Academy Awards for his short documentary films The Queen of Basketball and The Last Repair Shop that impressed Oscar voters with their cinematic poetry and craft.

Now it has taken the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions and Oscar-nominated documentary maker Moses Bwayo to convince Proudfoot to bring his emotional and immersive storytelling to the feature documentary with a portrait of Chris Hesse, the personal cinematographer for Kwame Nkrumah who reveals a vast library of lost films about the legendary African leader to modern audiences.

There’s no word on whether the Obamas will be in Toronto for the world premiere of The Eyes of Ghana, which also recounts the rise and fall of Nkrumah,...

Indie distributor Film Movement has acquired U.S. rights to “Paying for It,” an indie comedy about an introverted cartoonist who starts sleeping with sex workers that premiered positively in Toronto.

Set in the late ’90s, “Paying for It” is a live-action adaptation of Canadian alternative-cartoonist Chester Brown’s bestselling graphic novel. In the partly autobiographical film, when Chester’s girlfriend announces she wants to explore other romantic options, Brown opts to sleep with sex workers and discovers a new kind of intimacy.

“Paying for It” is directed by multidisciplinary artist Sook-Yin Lee, who was Chester Brown’s real romantic partner when the real-life story took place.

The film – which is executive produced by John Cameron Mitchell and Dan Beirne – stars Beirne, emerging actor Emily Lê (“Riceboy Sleeps”) and acclaimed activist, author and performer Andrea Werhun.

“Paying for It” launched from Toronto’s Platform section in 2024 and was named by...

Sean Baker hit the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, September 8 to premiere his Palme d’Or-winning film “Anora,” following its world premiere at Cannes and North American premiere at Telluride. The film follows Mikey Madison in an Oscar-friendly performance as an exotic dancer and sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch.

Many have compared the film to Garry Marshall’s “Pretty Woman,” but for Baker, he doesn’t completely see it that way. “There are definitely similarities between this film and ‘Pretty Woman,'” Baker told IndieWire. “Honestly, I didn’t even pick up on that until halfway through production and somebody called it out and I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah, I see that.'”

“But I didn’t want it in any way to affect me,” Baker continued. “I didn’t want to be influenced by it. So I decided to not revisit it...

Paris-based Loco Films has boarded “Paying For It,” Canadian helmer Sook-Yin Lee (“Octavio is Dead!”)’s adaptation of Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel. The movie is world premiering at Toronto Film Festival in the competitive Platform section.

Co-written by Lee and Joanne Sarazen, the live action movie stars Dan Beirne, emerging actor Emily Lê (“Riceboy Sleeps”), and acclaimed activist, author and performer Andrea Werhun.

The film explores the themes of love, sex and non-monogamy for adults. It’s set in the late 90s and revolves around Chester, an introverted cartoonist who starts sleeping with sex workers and discovers a new kind of intimacy after his girlfriend, Sonny, decides to redefine their committed relationship.

“Paying For It” is produced by Matt Code of Wildling Pictures, whose credits include “See for Me,” “Mary Goes Round” and the upcoming “Young Werther;” as well as Sonya Di Rienzo and Aeschylus Poulos of Hawkeye Pictures...

Anora writer-director Sean Baker has said sex workers should be decriminalised in a lively press conference on Wednesday.

“It’s important to experience what sex work is right now and how it applies to capitalist society,” Baker told a press conference after Tuesday’s well-received world premiere of his Competition film starring Mikey Madison as an exotic dancer who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch.

“It’s a career, a job, and one that should be in my opinion respected and at the same time decriminalised and not in any way regulated because it’s a sex worker...

Anora writer-director Sean Baker said sex workers should be decriminalised in a lively press conference on Wednesday.

The American writer-director was talking to reporters after Tuesday’s well-received world premiere of his Competition film starring Mikey Madison as an exotic dancer who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch.

“It’s important to experience what sex work is right now and how it applies to capitalist society,” said Baker. “It’s a career, a job, and one that should be in my opinion respected and at the same time decriminalised and not in any way regulated because it’s...

The Florida Project director Sean Baker has come on board to executive produce Modern Whore, Nicole Bazuin’s documentary adaptation of Andrea Werhun’s sex work memoir.

The feature-length hybrid film is currently shooting narrative re-enactments as part of a doc based on Modern Whore: A Memoir, a 2022 book that recalled Werhun’s work as an escort and in strip clubs, for which Bazuin provided extensive photography.

The illustrated memoir in turn sprang from a 2020 short film Modern Whore that Werhun starred in, Bazuin directed and which had its world premiere at SXSW. The Modern Whore feature documentary will be told from Werhun’s perspective and have her portray her former escort alias Mary Ann and her stripper persona Sophia, as well a more recent foray into OnlyFans as part of her sex work career in Toronto.

The indie will also incorporate writing and collaborations with other sex workers telling their own stories.