Toronto International Film Festival 2024: Documentaries, Part 1

TORONTO — The Docs Program at the Toronto International Film Festival is always the most politically rewarding section of the Festival. And although it’s quite difficult to see all the politically relevant films at an event that offers over 250 titles, these documentaries might pique your interest.

As we are forced to survive another brutal season of political campaigning (as we go to press, Trump has won reelection), you might remember the Republican who bravely turned against the former president. The Last Republican documents the courageous actions of Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois, who along with Rep. Lynn Cheney stood out in fierce opposition to the actions of our former president and agreed to be on a Congressional panel that interrogated the Jan 6th insurrection.

He was disgraced and ostracized by his Republican colleagues and his career was doomed—until a progressive Hollywood director named Steve Pink offered him a platform to explain his unpredictable behavior. The strange bonding of two politically different individuals (prompted by the congressman’s love of an earlier Pink film) results in an open and honest examination of a charismatic politician who feels he’s doing the best for his people. He felt the insurrection was an undemocratic attempt to take power away from the people.

It’s a forthright and often humorous story taking the viewer through a fun and emotional rollercoaster ride (Kinzinger was actually ridiculed by his former associates for crying in Congress). Most of us know that exorbitant amounts of money are spent on elections by big corporations and the military-industrial complex to buy candidates. In the process of trying to rationalize Kinzinger’s actions, the doc inadvertently exposes the extent of government corruption, confirming explicitly how big business influences public officials and ultimately runs the government.

As an interesting side note, Rep. Rashida Tlaib from Michigan has created the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, pointing out the fact that “when my political colleagues who own stock in the Big Five defense contractors vote to send more bombs and our loved ones to war, they profit financially personally.”

The excesses of patriotism and militarism are examined in a riveting and crazy documentary entitled Men of War. Jordan Goudreau is a zealous mercenary born in Canada but chose to enlist in the U.S. military because Canada “just doesn’t offer enough fighting action.” After a stint serving in wars overseas, he somehow acquired the belief that he had gained the support of the Trump administration and started a group called Silvercorp to help overthrow unfriendly governments.

Although his gung-ho militarism (reminiscent of his hero John Wayne) is questioned in the film, his motivation for leading a gang of 60 mercenaries to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro and his “criminal communist dictatorship” in Venezuela is embraced by the Festival, the director and special guests they invited to the screening, including a rabid exiled Venezuelan general. This creates an uneasy feeling of contradictions, where at one point the team worships fake “Acting President” Juan Guaidó, then eventually abandons him, echoing their sincere hope that Goudreau would have been successful but then ends up involving his fellow mercenaries in a reckless, doomed operation resulting in a totally failed coup. The director said, “It’s not an easy story to tell since it is constantly unfolding.”

Crazy new characters keep coming out of Miami, like the self-described revolutionary J.J. Rendón, a gangster who has been termed the Karl Rove of Latin America, now living in luxury in a Miami mansion. Goudreau, a delusional extremist, was surprisingly arrested by the FBI in July 2024, probably because he embarrassed the legitimate coup-makers! In the end, Goudreau ends up as a tragic broken victim of war, probably suffering from PTSD. This doc is very intriguing and should be interesting to people on both sides of the political divide, but ultimately it’s a reactionary pro-regime change film.