Dixie Chicks documentary to hatch at Toronto fest
TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) – A documentary about the firestorm that greeted the Dixie Chicks’ anti-Bush comments will make its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, organizers said Thursday.
“Dixie Chicks — Shut Up and Sing,” from Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple (“Harlan County,” “American Dream”) and Cecilia Peck, will receive a high-profile gala screening.
It documents the fury faced by the country music trio after singer Natalie Maines made an off-the-cuff comment about President Bush during a London concert three years ago.
Other world premieres in Toronto’s Real to Reel documentary sidebar include U.S. filmmaker A.J. Schnack’s “Kurt Cobain About a Son” and French filmmaker Jerome Laperrousaz’s “Made in Jamaica,” a portrait of Jamaican reggae and dancehall artists struggling to the top.
Toronto also has booked a North American premiere for U.S. documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” David Leaf and John Scheinfeld’s archival portrait of the Beatles star’s move from musician to war activist. Paul Rachman’s “American Hardcore,” a look at the 1980s hard-core punk music scene, will receive a Canadian premiere.
Also receiving world premieres as part of Real to Reel are Asger Leth’s “Ghosts of Cite Soleil,” about Haitian slum gang leaders, and Macky Alston’s “The Killer Within,” a portrait of a respected psychology professor who attempted a murderous shooting spree in his college dorm many years prior.
“It was stunning to find a Columbine-type story that happened 50 years before Columbine. It felt like an unearthing project,” Alston said. The documentary is told from the perspective of the aging professor’s daughter, who must cope with her newfound knowledge about her father’s past.
Other world premieres for Toronto include British filmmaker Lucy Walker’s “Blindsight,” a film about a blind Mount Everest climber; directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s “The Prisoner or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair,” and “Shame,” Mohammed Naqvi’s portrait of a Pakistani woman who dares to break her silence after being gang-raped during a village dispute.
Other documentaries bound for Toronto include:
= “Lake of Fire” from Tony Kaye;
= Italian director Davide Ferrario’s “Primo Levi’s Journey”;
= Japanese director Takayuki Nakamura’s geisha girl portrait “Yokohama Mary”;
= “Sari’s Mother,” a world premiere about an Iraqi mother searching hospitals for her HIV-positive son, from U.S. director James Longley.
= Camila Guzman Urzua’s “The Sugar Curtain”;
= Dutch filmmaker Alexander Oey’s “My Life as a Terrorist: The Story of Hans-Joachim Klein”;;
= French director Namir Abdel Messeeh’s “Toi, Waguih”;
= Vincenzo Marra’s “The Session Is Open”;
= Jeff Garlin’s “This Filthy World,” about John Waters’ one-man show.
= British director Liz Mermin’s “Office Tigers”;
= Bradley Beesley and Sarah Price’s “Summercamp!”;
= Sophie Fiennes’ “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema”;
= Nader Takmil Homayoun’s “L’ Iran: Une Revolution Cinematographique.”
The Toronto International Film Festival, which runs September 7-16, will make additional announcements in the coming weeks.
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