Toronto International Film Festival Announces 2025 Documentary Lineup

Restaurateur and former Food Network queen Paula Deen could use a bit of good news right about now, and she’s getting it from the Toronto International Film Festival.

Little more than a day after Deen announced the abrupt closure of two of her restaurants – including her flagship The Lady & Sons venue in Savannah, GA – TIFF announced it will host the world premiere of a new documentary about her, Canceled: The Paula Deen Story. The film directed by Billy Corben is expected to reevaluate the chef and entrepreneur, who saw her fortunes tumble over a decade ago when she admitted in a legal deposition that she had used a racial slur.

“It’s been 12 years since Paula Deen had a career downfall over a scandal. And in this film, Billy Corben is really looking back at exactly what happened in a way that I think is a lot more complicated than anyone’s hot take on it,” Thom Powers, TIFF’s chief documentary programmer, tells Deadline. “I think this film, which is going to be repped by UTA at the festival, should make a very interesting title for acquisitions executives just given the high profile, the title. It does feel like the kind of thing you can picture on the streamer tile.”

TIFF previously revealed some of its star-driven world premiere documentary titles, including John Candy: I Like Me, directed by Colin Hanks, and Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. But this morning, it announced the full lineup of nonfiction titles, a slate that includes new work by multiple Oscar winners and Oscar nominees. [Scroll for the list of films announced today].

TIFF will kick off its documentary program with the world premiere of The Eyes of Ghana, directed by two-time Academy Award winner Ben Proudfoot and Academy Award nominee Moses Bwayo, which Deadline’s Diana Lodderhose told you about on Monday. The film revolves around the extraordinary archive of 93-year-old cinematographer Chris Hesse, who carefully documented the career of Kwame Nkrumah, a key leader of the movement that liberated African countries from colonial rule in the 1960s.

Free Solo Oscar winners Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin return to TIFF with the world premiere of LOVE+WAR, a documentary about Pulitzer Prize-winning conflict photojournalist Lynsey Addario.

“In the film we’re following Lynsey Addario through a couple years of her coverage in Ukraine and as she also tries to figure out what’s a different path for a combat photographer, because the usual paths that exist — as the journalist Dexter Filkins describes in the film — usually end in divorce, addiction or death,” Powers says. “I think Addario is trying to explore — as the mother of two kids and husband back at home in London — can she do this in a different way?”

Oscar winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) will jet from the world premiere of Cover-Up in Venice to Toronto for the Canadian premiere of her film, which centers on the acclaimed journalist Seymour Hersh. He’s the Pulitzer Prize winner known for his scoops on Abu Ghraib, Watergate, and breaking the story of the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.

Also making the jump from Venice to TIFF are Below the Clouds, from Oscar nominee Gianfranco Rosi (Fire at Sea), and The Tale of Silyan, directed by Tamara Kotevska, who earned an Oscar nomination for 2019’s Honeyland, co-directed with Ljubomir Stefanov. Kotevska’s film unfolds in a remote corner of the world that also served as the backdrop for Honeyland.

“It’s again set in North Macedonia, about an elderly farmer whose family has had to emigrate from the country to go look for better economic opportunities. And as he’s left alone on his farm, he develops a kind of human-animal relationship with a stork who has a broken wing,” Powers notes. “It is really an exquisite film. And we think of so many films recently that have really touched a chord with audiences about relationships between animals and humans — My Octopus Teacher being a notable one. And I think this film really kind of plucks on those same hearts strings that other films have.”

Another film touching on the natural world is A Life Illuminated, which “follows trailblazing marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder—one of the first women in her field and one of the first humans to explore the ocean’s twilight zone—as she descends 3,300 feet into the ocean’s darkest depths,” according to a logline. “From capturing the first-ever footage of the elusive giant squid to unveiling the glowing mysteries of deep-sea bioluminescence, Edie embarks on her most daring quest yet: to document a bioluminescent phenomenon that could forever change how we understand life on Earth.”

Acclaimed filmmaker Michèle Stephenson, who hails from Haiti and spent some of her formative years in Québec, is set to unveil True North, which looks “at an uprising of students in Montreal, students from the Caribbean, particularly strong representation from Haiti. This was a time when immigration from the Caribbean was changing dynamics in Canada and Canadian education,” Powers says. “And in some ways this story could be like a chapter of Eyes on the Prize if Eyes on the Prize covered all of North America and not just the United States. It’s classic story of Civil Rights only in this case in Montreal.”

Sky Hopinka’s Powwow People joins the coterie of world premieres, as does Nuns vs. The Vatican, directed by Lorena Luciano and executive produced by Mariska Hargitay, the star of Law & Order: SVU (who recently made her directorial debut with the documentary My Mom Jayne).

“I’ve never seen Mariska do anything halfway anywhere in her career. And certainly, the stories of finding justice for victims of abuse is a longstanding cause of hers,” Powers tells Deadline. “For people who feel like coverage of abuse in the Catholic Church has been well trod before, there’s more to say, as we find out in this film.”

In a completely different vein is Modern Whore, directed by Canada’s Nicole Bazuin, based on the book written by Bazuin and Andrea Werhun. It’s an exploration of the sex industry from a new vantage point.

“How many films have we seen about sex work made by outsiders?” Powers asks. “I can’t even count how many. This is a rare film made by someone who comes from inside the sex work industry… It’s an un-romanticized look at sex work, but it also has a sense of humor and playfulness and artfulness to it. I thought it was extremely refreshing to see a candid take from the inside as a contrast to just so many films we’ve seen from the outside.”

The TIFF doc lineup is replete with films aiming for acquisition. Among them are The Eyes of Ghana, A Life Illuminated, and one film that soars into the skies.

“The Balloonists is looking at the race in the 1990s amongst aeronauts to become the first team to circumnavigate the earth in a balloon. And there’s extraordinary footage that’s taken from this period,” comments Powers. “Every once in a while, there’s a documentary that comes along that tells maybe an overlooked chapter of an adventure story… It’s a white-knuckle ride.”

One film in the documentary lineup could be considered counter-programming to the fractious political times in which we find ourselves.

“Whistle, which is a classic competition film about a whistling competition in the tradition of Spellbound or Air Guitar Nation or The Speed Cubers, is about people who do this more for love than money,” says Powers. “CAA is representing that film. The producing team includes Paula DuPré Pesmen and Alan Hicks who have a great track record, obviously. And I think that in these days of so much intense headlines, we need techniques to help bring us joy and whistling feels like as good as any to study.”

This is the 50^th TIFF coming up, and the 20^th year for Powers in his role as chief documentary programmer for the festival.

“I’m going to publish a book collection this September called Mondo Documentary that collects all the film descriptions I’ve written for TIFF over 20 years,” he says, “which amounts to over 350 films I was kind of staggered to realize.”

Here are the documentary films announced by TIFF today:

2025 TIFF Docs programme (in alphabetical order):

A Life Illuminated | Tasha Van Zandt | USA; World Premiere

A Simple Soldier | Juan Camilo Cruz, Artem Ryzhykov | Ukraine; North American Premiere

Aki | Darlene Naponse | Canada; World Premiere

Below the Clouds | Gianfranco Rosi | Italy; International Premiere

Canceled: The Paula Deen Story | Billy Corben | USA; World Premiere

Cover-Up | Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus | USA; Canadian Premiere

Flana | Zahraa Ghandour | Iraq/France/Qatar; World Premiere

LOVE+WAR | Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin | USA; World Premiere

Modern Whore | Nicole Bazuin | Canada; World Premiere

Ni-Naadamaadiz: Red Power Rising | Shane Belcourt | Canada; World Premiere

Nuestra Tierra | Lucrecia Martel | Argentina/USA/Mexico/France/Denmark/Netherlands; North American Premiere

Nuns vs. The Vatican | Lorena Luciano | USA; World Premiere

Orwell: 2+2=5 | Raoul Peck | USA/France; North American Premiere

Powwow People | Sky Hopinka | USA; World Premiere

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk | Sepideh Farsi | France/Palestine/Iran; North American Premiere

Still Single | Jamal Burger, Jukan Tateisi | Canada; World Premiere

The Balloonists | John Dower | USA/UK/Austria; World Premiere

The Eyes of Ghana | Ben Proudfoot | USA; World Premiere

The Tale of Silyan | Tamara Kotevska | North Macedonia; North American Premiere

There Are No Words | Min Sook Lee | Canada; World Premiere

True North | Michèle Stephenson | USA/Canada; World Premiere

While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven Parts | Peter Mettler | Canada/Switzerland; World Premiere

Whistle | Christopher Nelius | Australia; World Premiere

The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, presented by Rogers, runs September 4–14, 2025.