TORONTO (CP) _ Liev Schreiber, Don Cheadle, Woody Allen, Donald Sutherland, Michael Douglas, Joan Allen and Liam Neeson are among the actors lending their star power to documentaries at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
The lineup of non-fiction cinema titles announced Tuesday include Ted Braun’s "Darfur Now," an American piece featuring Cheadle and five other individuals trying to generate awareness about the genocide in the region of western Sudan.
Allen, meanwhile, can be seen interacting with composer Philip Glass and other musical luminaries in the Australian piece "Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts," by distinguished filmmaker Scott Hicks ("Shine").
In Nina Davenport’s U.S. offering "Operation Filmmaker," Schreiber invites a young Iraqi film student _ destitute after the bombing of Baghdad’s film school _ to intern on the production of the film "Everything is Illuminated."
"Trumbo," a U.S.-made doc from Peter Askin, is a portrait of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who fought back after being blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. It’s told through spoken-word performances and includes appearances by Sutherland, Douglas, Neeson and Joan Allen.
Eminent filmmakers Werner Herzog and Kevin Macdonald are also unspooling their latest projects at the festival, which runs Sept. 6 to 15.
Herzog’s piece "Encounters at the End of the World," about his trip to Antarctica, marks his triumphant return to the big screen since his acclaimed documentary "Grizzly Man."
Macdonald, director of the Oscar-winning "The Last King of Scotland," will screen "My Enemy’s Enemy," about the post-war activities of one-time Gestapo commander Klaus Barbie, infamously known as the "Butcher of Lyon."
Twenty documentaries in total were announced for the festival Tuesday, as well as several other film titles, including Gus Van Sant’s"Paranoid Park," about a troubled teenage skateboarder.
Actor Gael Garcia Bernal, who made a splash at last year’s film festival in the Brad Pitt gem "Babel," will return again this year for his directorial debut, "Deficit."
