Just back from the HotDocs festival in Toronto, or rather I've just recovered from getting back from it - damn you, body clock - and thought I'd give some brief opinions on some new documentaries doing the rounds. Watch out for them at cinemas or festivals near you! (I saw loads, so I've just picked a few notables)

MAN ON WIRE was a hit at Sundance and also played well at this festival. It's also doing the rounds at Tribeca and Edinburgh, that I know of. It's about a French performer who carried out surely the world's most audacious highwire act back in the seventies, setting up a wire between the tops of the WTC's twin towers.

The highwire scenes and photos are breathtaking but it's also fascinating to hear of how they managed it and the effect that it had on all the people involved. Like Marsh's sublime WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP, there's a combination of reconstruction and documentary (with more talking heads this time) and it's all scored by some perfectly matched classical music. At no point is there any reference to the eventual fate of the towers and that's for the best, as it really doesn't belong in this film. I'd never heard of this stunt before but since both my parents recalled it when I mentioned it (and they're Brits) I'm assuming lots of folks here will remember it too. Regardless, this is a great film.

PASSAGE concerns the story of who really discovered the North West Passage. It's a bold experiment in combining drama (a period drama about what really happened) with documentary (the cast and crew of said drama carrying out the research for the story) and is sure to ruffle a few feathers in the audience just as it does in the film. Accepted history is challenged, a British naval expert has a face-off with an Innuit, accusations of cannibalism and racism abound - and Charles Dickens' family gets dragged into it too. A Canada/UK co-production, the fact that BBC Scotland are involved make me think this is likely to end up on TV but it's fully deserving of a wider cinema release first.

STRANDED, I'VE COME FROM A PLANE THAT CRASHED IN THE MOUNTAINS is a documentary that reunites the survivors of the Uruguayan rugby team that crashlanded in the Andes (the basis for ALIVE) and tells the full story of what happened and how they survived. It's a simple enough approach - talking heads, archive footage, etc. - but when the story is this powerful there's no need of flashy gimmicks.

AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR is a profile of a man who worked as a chaplain in a Texan death row prison and takes in the arguments about the death penalty, specific cases, the effect its had on people's lives and most of all how this one man gradually changed after watching the execution of a man he believed to be innocent. If you've got strong views on capital punishment your view of the film will probably be affected but you should definitely see it either way.

FLOW: FOR THE LOVE OF WATER is yet another panic documentary. We've had the stuff about corporate insanity, the oil crisis and the climate crisis - now it's the turn of the water crisis to get the spotlight. Unsurprisingly, it's mostly bad news.

THE BLACK LIST is an interesting documentary which interviews many leading black Americans about being, well, black Americans and while a lot of the views and anecdotes are very interesting, it does leave the feeling of why was this film made, and who's it aimed at?

VIRTUAL JFK: VIETNAM IF KENNEDY HAD LIVED is exactly what it says, a what-if documentary. The verdict is relegated to a few sentences really but the research itself is the most interesting part. Using expert testimony and analysis combined with rare archive footage, the film examines exactly how much the personality of a president impacts on war and how different presidents react to the same people, in order to come up with a theory on how the war would have unfolded had Kennedy not been killed. The what-if documentary is a potential treasure trove and this is certainly an interesting example, but it's sure to get some people disagreeing vehemently by its very nature.

Finally, DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH is a biopic of Harlan Ellison. What do you think of him? The answer to that question will probably give you an idea of what you're likely to think of this film too. Opinionated, intelligent, angry, offensive - he's all these things and more, but the film is also very funny. Unless of course you just think he's a grumpy old man who likes upsetting people, in which case you're probably not going to get much out of this. I loved it.

After last year's festival I made some hasty Oscar predictions - of the above, I think MAN ON WIRE, AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR and VIRTUAL JFK are the most likely, however to illustrate how in-tune I am with public opinion, I managed to miss 8 out of the top 10 films as voted for by the HotDocs audience.

As an aside, that film that gave me more than a few chuckles, since I'm from Wisconsin, and went in expecting a somewhat historically accurate accounting of Black River Falls.

WHOA! Wrong move there... :lol: