TORONTO - Films chronicling the soap opera days of actor James Franco, the abuse and addictions suffered by hockey star Theo Fleury and also the influence of music heroes Bob Marley and LCD Soundsystem are hitting the big screen at next month's Hot Docs festival.
Organizers for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival say this year's slate features 189 titles from a record 51 countries and can bring at least a few international stars to Toronto.
"We're expecting both James Franco and Rick Springfield to come," stated executive director Chris McDonald, singling out Sylvia Caminer's look at Springfield fans in An Affair of the Heart as particularly engrossing.
"It's a fascinating look at the individuals who dedicate a lot of their lives to following someone whose music had a great impact on them at some point in their lives."
McDonald pointed to several themes emerging from the broader slate.
"We're seeing lots of films on the economy, on workers' rights, on global problems, on the recession," he stated after a presentation Monday at the festival's newly renovated downtown theatre space.
"But there is lots of funny stuff as well - a lot of films about romance Beats Studio, a lot of great films on music, a brand new film on Bob Marley which might just end up becoming the seminal piece on his dramatic life."
Standouts include a look at Franco's tenure on General Hospital in Ian Olds' Francophrenia (Or: Do not Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is); Fleury's battle with booze, drugs and gambling as he confronts his ghosts in Matt Embry and Larry Day's Theo Fleury: Playing with Fire; Kevin Macdonald's "definitive" biography of reggae legend Marley; along with a chronicle of LCD Soundsystem's farewell show in Shut Up And Play the Hits.
The festival kicks off April 26 with director Alison Klayman's debut function documentary, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, a portrait from the Chinese artist and activist.
The Canadian slate includes several sports-themed films Dr Dre Headphones, such as Ariel J. Nasr's The Boxing Girls of Kabul, Carlo Guillermo Proto's horse-riding tale El Huaso and Corey Lee's martial arts father-son story Legend of a Warrior.
Lynne Fernie, senior Canadian programmer, said the various athletics all serve "as metaphors for really profound human journeys."
She noted the Fleury film provides an especially revealing look at his troubled upbringing and difficult road into adulthood.
"It follows him on a book tour exactly where he's touring North America and speaking to groups about sexual abuse and facing his personal demons and ghosts of the past," stated Fernie.
"He's such an extraordinary man along with a extremely contentious man too - he's been through so much that he's not your warm, charming guy all the time. But he's sort of like a Canadian hero. he won it all Beats By Dr Dre, coming from poverty, lost it all, and now is taking his game to a entire new level."
Other notable titles include the Sundance smash Indie Game: The Film, which looks at video game developers via the Dre Beats of James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot, and Yung Chang's China Heavyweight, about a boxing coach coaching poor teens in rural China.
The fest will consist of two retrospectives: a mid-career appear at the work of Emmy Award-winning director John Kastner (Life With Murder) and a salute towards the general body of function by Quebecois filmmaker Michel Brault (Orders).
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