The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) launched on Thursday, Sept. 5 and distributors were moving with alacrity to nab titles, with many picking up distro rights before the festival even launched. Realscreen’s Adam Benzine spoke with TIFF programmer (and Stranger Than Fiction Artistic Director) Thom Powers about several of the deals secured by films premiering at the festival. However, Benzine reported that Ron Howard’s Jay-Z concert doc MADE IN AMERICA had found an international rights sales agent in The Exchange. Realscreen colleague Kevin Ritchie had the news that the UK’s Dogwoof had acquired international rights for DANGEROUS ACTS STARRING UNSTABLE ELEMENTS OF BELARUS. Gregg Kilday of The Hollywood Reporter reported that HBO had nabbed U.S. television rights for the film.

At the What (Not) to Doc blog, Basil Tsiokos offered an overview of docs screening at TIFF. The Hollywood Reporter also shared a post on five must-see films screening at the festival. Writing for the POV blog, Tom Roston interviewed Thom Powers about certain festival selections. Back at Realscreen, Adam Benzine had the opportunity to speak with director Claude Lanzmann.

The folks behind the blog Film School Rejects this week launched a new site dedicated to nonfiction entertainment titled Nonfics.com and headed by former Documentary Channel blog editor Christopher Campbell. Campbell’s prodigious output has yielded too many posts to link individually, but you can check out his editor’s welcome here, as well as a list of 10 TIFF selections Campbell was excited to see. Campbell also wrote up an interview with TIFF sensation TIM’S VERMEER subject Tim Jenison, and penned a piece about the phenomenon of spoilers potentially ruining documentaries. Robert Greene also wrote the first of a series, Shots From the Canon, as part of efforts to identify a new nonfiction canon.

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This week the big news was the announcement of the doc films to be featured at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Coverage of the news came from all corners of the web. Jennie Punter of Variety had the news, as did Nick Dawson of Filmmaker Magazine. Adam Benzine wrote up the lineup for Realscreen, and later rounded up some trailers of the films screening in Toronto. Jordan M. Smith covered the news for Ion Cinema, while Nigel M. Smith did the same for Indiewire. Etan Vlessing wrote up the announcement for The Hollywood Reporter. STF’s Thom Powers also spoke with David Poland of Movie City News in his capacity as TIFF doc programmer.

Penny Lane’s OUR NIXON hit CNN this week, marking the first documentary to be screened under its CNN Films banner. Alison Willmore reviewed the film for Indiewire, while her colleague Sam Adams wondered if critics held the film to a different standard because it aired on television. David Teich of Indiewood/Hollywoodn’t also interviewed Lane.

In distro news, Kartemquin Films announced that Kino Lorber had acquired US rights for the upcoming THE TRIALS OF MUHAMMAD ALI from director Bill Siegel. Realscreen’s Adam Benzine reported that Sundance Selects had snagged U.S. rights for FINDING VIVIAN MAIER from directors John Maloof and Charlie Siskel. Benzine also had the news that Sony Picture Classics had gained worldwide rights for the film TIM’S VERMEER directed by one-name magician Teller. (Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times also reported on the film this week.) Benzine also reported that CNN Films had acquired SOLE SURVIVOR by director Kyle Dickens to be aired in 2014.

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