Harris Dew is Director of Programs and Promotions at the IFC Center in New York and a treasured colleague for my Stranger Than Fiction series, based at the theater. He shares his great taste in documentaries with these 3 TIFF doc picks:

As a New Yorker by choice, I'm especially partial to stories of societies that obliterate the past to radically remake themselves. The titanic political, economic and social transformations of contemporary China have yielded an amazing body of films, from fiction to docs to Jia Zhang-ke's peerless hybrids, so I'm very excited to catch ONCE UPON A TIME PROLETARIAN: 12 TALES OF A COUNTRY (pictured). If there's a XIAO WU-style lighter that plays a tinkly, inappropriate version of the Internationale, I'll be in heaven.

LA DANSE: LE BALLET DE L'OPERA DE PARIS - It's Wiseman. If he made the Idaho state government compelling, imagine the Paris ballet in his hands.

And, because the personal is political, GOOD HAIR. ‘Nuff said.