Guy Maddin’s film My Winnipeg is the last movie I watched on my TV before it left for its new home. It is such a personal movie about home that it is a fitting start to my imagination recovery project. Besides the personal, there is a whole heaping dose of the creative as well. Usually Maddin is too esoteric for me. He’s one of those filmmakers whose wavelength you have to catch, and if you don’t, you are looking slack-jawed and glassy eyed wondering what the F* is this guy going on about?

I caught the rhythm of the stanzas that make up this visual poem. A young man trapped in the cold north, townsfolks who possess “just the right amount of wrong,” as a friend would say, and a city with some stunning moments in its history. But the glue that holds together the personal with the history of the city is Maddin’s own dysfunctional childhood. Hiring actors to recreate scenes from his childhood, he hopes that seeing them again will allow him adult insight into childhood hurts. Black and white, fantastic, and certainly pushing the boundaries of documentary, I’m actually surprised there wasn’t more of a discussion last year when the film was out about how it fits into the documentary canon. But, it’s also nice that people overwhelming appreciated the film and didn’t care to argue the labeling.

I’m happy this was the last movie I watched on my television set because last night, I was thinking about it and getting ideas for all of the possible projects I could start, or pick up where I left off with. My Winnipeg is such a beautiful collage of the personal combined with the historical, it almost sets a bar (for me, at least) for self-expression. Yes, it’s great to exorcise demons but great art is rarely personal only.

The Toronto International Film Festival has announced its full slate of documentaries for this year’s incarnation. Seeing the list makes me (again) totally bummed I can’t be there. Doc programmer Thom Powers has once again asked a bunch of us doc folk to contribute our picks for their great doc blog, but to limit our picks to three! Of course, there are more than three that I’d catch if I could. Here are some of my picks beyond those I sent Thom:

It Might Get Loud
By Davis Guggenheim, USA World Premiere
The Academy Award™-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth celebrates the electric guitar by examining the creative process of three virtuosos – Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2 and Jack White of The White Stripes – including their individual development of songs not yet released.

Examined Life
By Astra Taylor, Canada World Premiere
An intimate and engaging conversation with some of the greatest minds of our era – including Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Kwame Anthony Appiah and more – Examined Life conveys the wonderment and curiosity that drives philosophical thought, taking it out of the ivory towers of academia and into the hustle and bustle of the everyday.

The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World
By Weijun Chen, China  World Premiere
The director of last year’s crowd-pleaser Please Vote For Me  returns with a look at the West Lake Restaurant in Changsha, China – the world’s largest restaurant. With a staff of nearly 1000 (including 300 chefs) and 5000 seats, West Lake is a combination theme park and eatery, offering a cross section of the country’s changing society.

After the Race
By Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Austria  World Premiere
Following the tracks of the famous Dakar rally, filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Our Daily Bread) sets off on a journey from Europe to Africa, documenting European ideas of and prejudices toward Africans, and vice versa.

What are you looking forward to?