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This year's Toronto International Film Festival is filthy with films boasting socially progressive bona fides. Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell, tackles chauvinism in the sports arena. Kings, with Halle Berry and Daniel Craig, looks at racism through the prism of the Rodney King riots. The same-sex romance Call Me by Your Name aims to be this year's Brokeback Mountain. Hollywood, don't you know, is all about speaking truth to power.

TIFF itself is even positioning itself as more socially "woke" than usual, with its Share Her Journey campaign aimed at remedying the unbelievable gender imbalance in the industry (last year, only 7 per cent of the top 250 films were directed by women).

Yet year after year, it's the less-glitzy documentary program that exhibits true social awareness. It makes sense; with smaller budgets, lowered aesthetic expectations, and a cinematic form built on real-time urgency, documentaries are better positioned to act as a mirror to the current culture.

It was a notion I kept returning to this past weekend, as TIFF lurched from one glitzy, questionable star vehicle to the next – where were the incendiary films that could unite audiences to stand up and cheer? Where were the movies that might actually make a difference in this heightened political climate? As ever, the doc lineup provided the answer, with one of the most culturally conscious selection of films in recent TIFF memory.

Even putting aside its achievement in near-gender parity – 41 per cent of 2017's doc programming is directed by women, versus the festival's total programming of 33 per cent – this year's offerings are impressive, even intimidating, in their progressiveness.

There are films on iconic figures in the black community (Boom for Real, about Jean-Michel Basquiat; Grace Jones: Bloodlight & Bami; The Gospel According to Andre, focusing on fashion icon Andre Leon Talley; Sammy Davis Jr.: I Gotta Be Me; and Sighted Eyes / Feeling Heart, which chronicles the life of playwright Lorraine Hansberry); movies examining LGBT issues (Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood); and the expected, though no less appreciated, docs pivoting on here-and-now politics, including The China Hustle, Cocaine Prison, Silas and The Final Year.

On paper, that list might read like a compacted semester on the most liberal campus imaginable. Yet the films are more dynamic than didactic. It is a testament to the programming prowess of TIFF's longtime documentary expert, Thom Powers – especially when the rest of the festival is crowded with temptations of glossier, more escapist fare.

"Sometimes these things come together as a coincidence," says Powers, who has been programming docs for TIFF for the past twelve years, and has also worked with the IFC Center in New York, the DOC NYC festival and the Miami International Film Festival. "The Grace Jones film, I've been following that for ten years. And then there happened to be a cluster of films, like the Jean-Michel film and the Andre film."

Although he prefers not to trumpet certain connective themes in his doc selection, Powers admits that this year offers a notable cluster of films that cannot escape the current political climate. "The films come in waves, and outsiders may not see the connections like I do, but there is a notable cluster of films in the program about figures of resistance," he says. "They come from very different countries and very different filmmakers, but each of the central characters in something like Silas, they impressed me for their courage and eloquence in standing up to larger forces."

"Right now, in North America, we see people hold up signs of 'resist' and rally around this idea of resistance," he continues. "I think these figures, and these films, have a lot to teach us."

On the issue of gender parity, Powers admits the doc medium simply makes it easier for female filmmakers to make headway in a notoriously hostile and sexist industry.

"There's no question there, with budget being a very big factor," he says. "It takes a lot less money and fewer gatekeepers for women to get started on a documentary project. Or any director, because you don't have to wait for someone to give yourself permission. You can just get it going with less resources to begin with."

Like any TIFF program, though, the doc lineup isn't immune to the sway of celebrity. Hence its world premiere of Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, from pop-doc provocateur Morgan Spurlock. On that front, Powers makes no apologies.

"He's a documentary brand name in a field that doesn't have that many. I think he's been a key figure, along with Michael Moore, as someone who's shaken up the doc field from some of its tendencies to be over-serious," Powers says. "If you want to reach a larger audience, it helps to have a sense of humour."

If including Spurlock ensures the rest of the program has as many incendiary calls to action as it does this year, so be it – I'll bite.

George Clooney is urging people to help Houston residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. The movie star was promoting his directorial effort Suburbicon at TIFF

The Canadian Press

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