The past year has been good to documentary filmmakers. Bowling for Columbine, Winged Migration, Spellbound and Capturing the Friedmans, to name a few, all beat the odds to varying degrees and brought in more box-office cash than anyone could reasonably have thought possible. People – regular people, mind you, not critics or other filmmakers with 10 bucks and two hours to kill – actually lined up and paid to see these things, and chattered excitedly for days and weeks afterwards about spelling bees, flying birds, kiddie porn and the uncertain mental health of Charlton Heston.

Ergo, documentaries are hot across the industry as well as at this year’s TIFF, which has programmed more than the usual number of nonfiction flicks – roughly 30 features, in both the Real to Reel and Perspective Canada programs.

‘It’s a big year all around,’ says Real to Reel programmer Sean Farnel, adding that doc makers have ‘good reason to be bullish’ after the champion season of 2002. He says buyers will come to TIFF looking to snap up the next Columbine.

They will certainly take a long look at The Corporation, a three-hour think piece about corporate misbehavior similar, in many ways, to Michael Moore’s works. In progress since the late ’90s, it is based on the writings of UBC law professor Joel Baken.

Directors Mark Achbar (Manufacturing Consent) and Jennifer Abbott (Cow at My Table) cite Moore, who appears in the film, as a major inspiration.

‘There are few activists out there who deal with such urgent issues. But at the same time he’s so irreverent,’ says Abbott.

The Corporation has already been packaged into three one-hours for TVOntario, Knowledge Network, SCN and Access, but its academic airs could hurt its chances for a run in theatres. Liz Czach, one of TIFF’s Perspective Canada programmers, says buyers are watching for narrated, story-driven docs similar to Friedmans, which recounts a sexual abuse investigation and got a limited U.S. release earlier this year. Docs are easier to sell when they follow something akin to traditional storylines told by a single voice, she offers.

That’s good news for Ron Mann (Grass) and CHUM Television, who are looking to sell Go Further. Mann’s ninth TIFF entry follows a herd of eco-activist types, narrator Woody Harrelson (Grass) among them, on a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway to promote earth-friendly living.

The picture sneak previewed to great acclaim at the SXSW music fest in Austin, TX, early this year and Mann has since turned down some 30 other festivals so that Go Further might make a big splash at TIFF. CHUM backed the picture through its MuchMusic specialty channel and is throwing a hippy-riffic party (yoga, hemp burgers, organic beer, etc.) to promote the pic, for which it is handling all sales.

‘There are maybe 15 documentary makers in the world that get theatrical releases,’ says Mann, ‘and I guess I’m one of them.’ The picture is screening as a special presentation and Mann will also speak at a Mavericks filmmaker session at the Rogers Industry Centre.

‘I’ve really not been a part of the film industry, but the film industry has made me special, which is very special,’ he says.

Five less happy stories are told in Dying at Grace, by veteran filmmaker Allan King, which follows ailing cancer patients through their final days at a Toronto palliative care centre. Meanwhile, directors Jeff Stephenson and Jason Tan look deep into one man’s manic quest for celebrity in Flyerman.

U.S. productions of note at this year’s TIFF are Errol Morris’s The Fog of War; The Agronomist, Jonathan Demme’s portrait of Haitian militant Jean Dominique; and The Yes Men from docmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price.

Also watch for the native issues pic Totem by Gil Cardinal and The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming, both from Canada.

Farnel says docs are more popular now with mainstream audiences due mainly to more savvy marketing by distributors. Reality TV has also helped somewhat by getting viewers acclimatized to nontraditional formats and the often rough production values.

‘But I don’t think anyone watches Survivor and the next day says ‘I saw a great documentary last night,” he says.