White Stripes Canadian tour doc to premiere at TIFF

The world premieres of documentaries about the White Stripes cross-Canada tour and an investigation of why bees are dying will be screened as part of the Toronto International Film Festival this September. 

Emmett Malloy, an American music video and documentary veteran, followed Jack and Meg White as they travelled across Canada in 2007, giving concerts in every province.

His documentary The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights  follows the band to cities like Whitehorse, Saskatoon, Winnipeg and Charlottetown, which are unconventional stops for a prominent band.

Jack White said he was living out a childhood fantasy by touring all of Canada.

In addition to 18 official concerts, the tour featured several impromptu mini-shows, including jamming on a Winnipeg bus and rocking out from the back of boat in Charlottetown's harbour.

It is one of 17 documentaries, including nine world premieres, announced for the 2009 TIFF schedule on Tuesday.

Colony by Carter Gunn and Ross McDonnell of Ireland looks at colony collapse disorder in the U.S., which has caused millions of bees to mysteriously disappear.

TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers said many of this year's documentaries reveal unusual new trends in the post-crash economy, including Google Baby, a documentary on surrogate mothers who carry babies for wealthy mothers in India and How to Fold A Flag, about Iraq veterans attempting to rebuild their lives after returning home.

Among the films making their premieres:  

• The Art of the Steal by Don Argott of the U.S., a probe of the Barnes collection of post-Impressionist paintings and the power struggle that followed the death of owner Albert Barnes.
• Bassidji by Mehran Tamadon of Iran, which looks at the the most extreme supporters of the Islamic republic of Iran to understand their ideas.
• Presumed Guilty by Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith of Mexico, an exposé on the contradictions of the Mexican legal system that follows an attempt to exonerate a wrongly convicted man. 
• L'Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot in which French film archivist Serge Bromberg, working with Ruxandra Medrea, uncovers an unfinished film called L'Enfer directed by the French master Henri-Georges Clouzot, known for Wages of Fear and Diabolique.  

There are also profiles of prominent figures, including Daniel Ellsberg, the insider who exposed the lies of the Vietnam War, Michael Ruppert, a radical thinker who foresees environmental and economic collapse and the Topp Twins, lesbian country-and-western singers from New Zealand.

The Special Presentations section features Jeff Stilson's documentary Good Hair, in which comedian Chris Rock embarks on a quest to understand African American hair culture after his daughter poses the question: "Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?"

TIFF also announced new audience awards. For the first time, audiences in 2009 will be able to pick their favourites for the new People's Choice Awards in the documentary and Midnight Madness programs.

There is already an People's Choice Award for feature films.

The opening night movie of the popular Midnight Madness program, which features many of the festival's more eccentric offerings, is Jennifer's Body by Karyn Kasuma.

Starring Megan Fox, it tells of a small-town high school student who transforms into the devil. The script is by Juno writer Diablo Cody.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 10-19.