Music, fashion on tap for TIFF

Films about influential Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and fashion designer Valentino will bow at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which on Tuesday added 26 documentaries to its slate.

The world premiere of Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love follows the popular musician as he unveils his latest album Egypt as an expression of his Islamic faith, while stirring controversy in his home country. The film is written and directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, who won acclaim for her 2003 doc A Normal Life, about refugees in Kosovo.

N’Dour will play as a special presentation alongside Valentino: The Last Emperor, which examines the life and work of the famed Italian fashion designer, through Vanity Fair correspondent-turned-filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer.

In the Masters program, TIFF has added Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda’s autobiographical doc Les Plages d’Agnès. The self-portrait offers a glimpse at her life through photographs, film clips and surprising encounters.

The Real to Reel slate includes several films from American docmakers, including Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), who celebrates the electric guitar through artists including The Edge of U2 and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin in It Might Get Loud.

U.K. thesp Helen Mirren narrates the film Yes Madam, Sir, about India’s first woman police officer, while Chinese director Weijun Chen (Please Vote For Me) returns to TIFF with The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World, looking at the world’s largest eatery in Changsha, China.

The films join previously announced docs including Larry Charles’ Religulous. TIFF runs Sept. 4-13.