Short Film News (SFN) - 26 documentaries are going to screen in various programs of the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF08).

Among these films, one documentary will screen in Mavericks, two will screen as Special Presentations, one as a Masters title, and 22 as part of Real to Reel, showcasing the finest in non-fiction cinema from around the world.

"Documentary-making continues to flourish," says Thom Powers, Documentary and Mavericks Programmer. "Every year there are more films that command the big screen. There has been a short-sighted focus on the recent lack of a documentary blockbuster. In the larger picture, more docs are getting funded and released theatrically than ever before."

Highlights include a look at a fashion master in Valentino: The Last Emperor and a self-portrait of French auteur Agnes Varda in Les Plages d'Agnes. Guitar heroes Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White are profiled in It Might Get Loud. Two films, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love and Soul Power, explore the musical exchange between Africa and abroad.

Three films examine crusading eco-warriors - controversial Canadian activist Paul Watson in At the Edge of the World, authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan in Food, Inc. and Native Americans of the Hoopa tribe in Upstream Battle.

Two films revisit cases of injustice - from the courtrooms of California in Witch Hunt to a tarnished legacy in Israel in Killing Kasztner. Several films intersect with various sports, including kung fu masters in The Real Shaolin and LeBron James's high school basketball team in More Than a Game.

Two films have the backdrop of Ivy League schools in the tumultuous year of 1968, with Tommy Lee Jones playing college football in Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 and student strikers at Columbia University in A Time to Stir.

Toronto International Film Festival runs September 4-13, 2008.