Watching documentaries at festivals and in theatrical release across the past couple of years makes you want to shout Power to the Pixel! often enough. There's so many ways to tell a nonfiction tale that haven't even been constructed yet. The titles that stand out for me on TIFF '09's roster run have only one thing in common: promise.

Alain Cavalier's minimalist video diaries work from the simplest esthetic, a 77-year-old filmmaker, a camera, his memories. "Irène," a portrait of his late wife, should be austere pleasure.

Whereas I'd hope Michael Moore's maximalism makes hay of financial collapse in his "Fahrenheit 9/11 Deux," aka "Capitalism: A Love Story." Stick it to the man or simply shtick? Here's hoping for a bumptious timeline of the fiscal implosion

Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein complete an Iraq War trilogy with "How to Fold a Flag," portraits of soldiers making lives back in the US.; after "Gunner Palace," " The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair," and "Bulletproof Salesman," I'll always look forward to their bracing perspective.

Madness is more often exemplified by fiction than nonfiction: "L'Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot," picking up the pieces of an unfinished film by the French director as he's cracking up looks like rich stuff.

And there are two about movements. Labor, in Marc Levin's "Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags," a history of New York's garment district should suit his
impassioned, engaged style. Then there's eco-awareness, with "Colony," a reportedly lovely-to-look-at look at "colony collapse disorder," the potentially apocalyptic disappearance of bees worldwide. Even this handful of features makes "documentary collapse disorder" seem the unlikeliest of fates for nonfiction filmmaking.



Ray Pride is an editor at Moviecitynews.com and Newcity; links to his other
work are at raypride.blogspot.com.