While some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and heavyweight execs normally descend upon the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF, it’s also proven attractive to such music stars as Bruce Springsteen, Bono and Tom Waits, with documentaries and movies to promote.
This year, TIFF runs from Sept. 6 to 16 and a number of music-related films are scheduled. Here, in tweet-sized chunks, is a summary of what’s in store for music fans.
American Masters: Inventing David Geffen
A doc charting the director's personal and professional life. A Q&A with Geffen and director Susan Lucy follows.
Revealing "harsh truths about the modern music business," Artifact documents Jared Leto's band Thirty Seconds to Mars as they battle their label over their album, This Is War.
Spike Lee pays tribute to the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's LP, with help from Kanye West, Sheryl Crow, Cee Lo Green and Martin Scorsese.
A dramatic rendering of Jeff Buckley's strained relationship with his iconic father in the lead-up to making his classic LP, Grace.
How to Make Money Selling Drugs
Rappers Eminem, 50 Cent and Rick Ross are featured in this probing doc about selling drugs and drug enforcement.
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp
Part fiction, part exhaustively researched doc, this film tells the gritty tale of Slim, featuring interviews with Chris Rock, Ice T, Snoop Lion and Quincy Jones.
A crime drama directed and scored by British artist Plan B. Eight characters' lives are linked by their struggle to survive London's mean streets.
A transsexual rock opera directed by Peaches, in conjunction with a live performance and installation piece. You had me at transsexual rock opera.
Rob Zombie directs this horror film involving a mysterious LP that drives the protagonist insane.
This Canadian-made doc suggests that, with its inclusive club atmosphere, disco ushered in an empowering era for blacks, gays and women that wrestled white male rock music off the charts.
A new doc on the case of the wrongly incarcerated "west Memphis 3," featuring interviews with Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp and Peter Jackson.
In this film based on a short story by Dionne Brand, a couple fights over whether a radio report states the mayor is assembling 100 policemen or 100 musicians.
Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener star in this drama about a classical string quartet’s 25th anniversary and the release of repressed emotions.
A timid British sound engineer is hired to score a new project by an Italian horror film studio in this psychological thriller.
A stop-motion film about the cycles of life, inspired by Modest Mussorgsky's piano concerto Pictures at an Exhibition.
A rapper/conman persuades a group of cast-off street kids in the Congolese capital to form a wild musical group.
Famed Sex Pistols director Julien Temple (The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, The Filth and the Fury) takes a hard look at his beloved city’s tumultuous 20th century.
Dustin Hoffman stops looking for things like sick monkeys and women marrying other men to direct his first feature about four aging opera singers.
Snoop Dogg goes to Jamaica on a spiritual quest and smokes so much weed, he thinks he’s Bob Marley and changes his name to Snoop Lion.
A cantankerous retiree (Terence Stamp) replaces his ailing wife (Vanessa Redgrave) in a choir that performs songs by Salt 'N’ Pepa and Motörhead.
An overzealous policeman accuses an Aboriginal man of stealing and then “breaks away from typical police behaviour.” My guess is, he dances?
Four talented Aboriginal girls from Australia are plucked from obscurity to form a girl group in 1968 and entertain the troops in Vietnam.
An animated musical about a morbid business run by a family with a relentlessly cheerful son.
A doc about graffiti culture in Dakar where rappers, taggers and artists communicate in a language of dissent.
Related:
Words and Music: Craig Davidson and Jenn Grant (Part 2)
Snoop Dogg now Snoop Lion, says he’s Bob Marley reincarnated
Neil Young Journeys comes to theatres June 29