POV Magazine

This issue marks a great showing for Canadian documentaries on the fall festival circuit. It’s nice to see a strong presence for homegrown docs this year, particularly as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) celebrates its fiftieth edition. Looking back, Toronto has long been a notable (if imperfect!) launchpad for documentary. For example, the inaugural ’76 fest premiered Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA, a riveting portrait of miners’ strikes told with heart and courage. It went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary and, in my books, remains the best doc ever made. Canadian docs like Kanehsatake (1993), Shake Hands with the Devil (2004), Manufactured Landscapes (2006) and To Kill a Tiger (2022) all started in Toronto on the road to great acclaim. Meanwhile, the much ballyhooed track record…

In these fraught times, with environmental concerns being just one of many issues—from genocidal warfare to the trampling of human rights to harrowing poverty—facing us globally, it’s good to remember that the fall brings bounties, produced by many: labourers of the land, factory workers and the artists who make brilliant cultural products. Just as we may relish in the fruits and vegetables that are now appearing on our tables, so will we soon be feasting on the concerts, new books, gallery shows and films that make the fall such a grand time. At POV, we salute the documentary filmmakers globally who are continuing to make work despite all the threats against them. We know that photographers, journalists and directors are the targets of the military in too many countries. Having…

“DOCUMENTARIES ARE THE LANGUAGE WE USE to speak to each other. They’re a mirror to share and reflect to each other who we are, a bridge to connect each other. And sometimes they’re a hammer, to shape the world that we want to live in.” These were the words of Min Sook Lee, national chair of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), and they were uncommonly lyrical for their quasi-judicial context. She was addressing questions posed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and her responses held her interlocutors rapt. During May’s hearings on Canadian content, few presenters appeared to fix the Commissioners as intently as Min Sook, who brought zeal and a filmmaker’s flair for storytelling to what was often, as is typical for the CRTC, a more…

JUST THIRTY YEARS AGO, radio DJs refused to play back-to-back tracks sung by women. Listeners would change the station, insisted programmers. A female pop artist had never opened for a female headliner. Tickets won’t sell, said every promoter. Sarah McLachlan had had enough. She went on tour with opener Paula Cole and audiences flocked to the bill. “Let’s do a mini festival with four female artists,” she thought. And music lovers descended on the scene. “OK,” she said, “It’s time for an all-day festival featuring women artists and women-led bands.” And the Lilith Fair was born: three years, from 1997 to 1999, of mam-moth day-long events, featuring, among many others, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, the Indigo Girls and Erykah Badu while energizing the careers of newly minted recording artists like…

FROM THE MOMENT THEY MET, Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin began collaborating. At the time, Bazuin was casting for a music video and needed a go-go dancer. “Andrea was recommended to me through friends as someone who would be a great go-go dancer,” Bazuin recalls. “The other go-go dancer didn’t show up, so I told her, I’m going to go-go dance in this music video too. I felt like we had a natural rapport.” “It’s really special that we started our friendship collaborating,” adds Werhun. “The first moment we met, we were already making something. From there, I got to see Nicole’s other artistic works and was blown away by her talents. A director who could jump in and go-go dance… She is so cool.” The pair would continue to…

“IN MY MIND, WHAT MAKES OMAKASE DINING the number one experience at a sushi restaurant is that it is the ultimate open kitchen,” chef Masaki Saito tells POV. The master chef is renowned for his ability to create superb dining in the “omakase” style, in which customers trust his curatorial power to serve the best series of dishes. Saito’s artistry as a sushi chef has no equal in Canada. As of July 2025, his omakase restaurant Sushi Masaki Saito is the only restaurant in Toronto with two Michelin stars. In Canada, only one other restaurant, Quebec City’s Tanière3 boasts the same distinction. The appropriately titled documentary Still Single, directed by Jamal Burger and Jukan Tateisi, and produced by Fraser Ash and Kevin Krikst of Rhombus Media and Julian Nieva of…