Edward Snowden, Amanda Knox and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are three of the controversial real-life dramas being brought to the big screen at this year’s Toronto film festival.  Snowden, Oliver Stone’s retelling of the NSA whistleblower’s life, was rejected by most major studios, with the Oscar-winning film-maker claiming “self-censorship” to be the cause. It was finally made independently, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role.  “I really didn’t want to do this at first,” Stone said at Comic-Con in San Diego earlier this year. “You get beat up when it’s [based on] current [events]. You get killed with lawsuits. Often the protagonist of the movie will turn on you. This story’s not over yet, we’ll see when it comes out, but I’ve been hopeful that it’s been smooth.”  The film also stars Nicolas Cage, Rhys Ifans, Shailene Woodley, Tom Wilkinson and Snowden himself.  The festival will also have the world premiere of Deepwater Horizon, a $156m (£116.6m) budget disaster thriller from Lone Survivor director Peter Berg that re-creates the devastating oil spill of 2010. Mark Wahlberg plays the real-life hero at the centre of the tragedy that led to BP being ordered to pay $4.5bn in court. Berg denies that the film lays blame for the spill, focusing instead on the loss of life.  “I want to make a film about people,” Berg has said. “Everybody knows that there was a horrible environmental disaster. Everybody knows that a lot of animals were killed. But what people don’t know is 11 men were killed and many more were injured and there were some real heroes on that rig. That was a very compelling human story, and that’s the story we all want to tell.”  Netflix will also premiere an expansive new documentary about Amanda Knox and the murder of Meredith Kercher. Film-makers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn gained unprecedented access to Knox, as well as to the controversial Italian prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.  “When we started the film in 2011, I wasn’t sure we had all the answers,” Blackhurst told Vanity Fair. “I told my wife, ‘I don’t think we know everything that happened in this story.’ And I find it frustrating that we live in a post-factual world when truth doesn’t matter any more. And there are no repercussions when you write something wrong. So I thought, ‘Let’s see if we can find out the truth.’”  The festival will also see the Canadian premiere of writer/director/star Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation, the slavery drama that has gained attention after Parker recently learned that a woman who accused him of rape in college killed herself in 2012. Parker cancelled select interviews, but he plans to attend Toronto and take part in a press conference.  Toronto is also seen as a launch pad for films aiming at Oscar glory, with previous years seeing the premieres of Dallas Buyers Club, Still Alice and Argo. This year, films with awards potential include Lion, a fact-based drama starring Dev Patel as a man searching for his family, and A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike as an interracial couple who caused an international outcry in the 1940s.  Following on from an increased police presence at this year’s Cannes film festival due to terrorism fears, organisers have also promised more security in Toronto.  “Over the years, we have heightened our security, mostly behind the scenes, so the public do not notice,” festival CEO Piers Handling said. “This year, we did a revisit of our entire security plan from top to bottom. We’re very involved with all levels of police in the Toronto area, and we’re very aware of potential terrorist attacks.  Snowden Oliver Stone’s drama stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the NSA informant, with support from Nicolas Cage and Tom Wilkinson.  Deepwater Horizon Mark Wahlberg takes the lead in a big-budget disaster movie about the BP oil spil in 2010 that took 11 lives.  A United Kingdom David Oyelowo plays a member of Botswana’s royal family, whose marriage to a British woman, played by Rosamund Pike, causes international outrage in the 40s.  LBJ When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner’s biopic of Lyndon B Johnson stars Woody Harrelson as the president and support from Bill Pullman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.  Denial Rachel Weisz stars as Deborah E Lipstadt, a historian who was taken to court by writer David Irving for calling him a Holocaust denier.  Lion A true story that sees Dev Patel playing a man trying to track down his family in India using Google Earth.  Amanda Knox A Netflix documentary about the outfall of the death or Meredith Kercher, featuring Knox herself.  Queen of Katwe Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o stars in this fact-based drama about a chess champion in Uganda.  Barry A biopic of a young Barack Obama that focuses on his time as a college student in New York.  Rats The latest film from Super Size Me is billed as a “horror documentary”.  American Pastoral Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut is an adaptation of Philip Roth’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel, in which he stars alongside Jennifer Connelly.  Colossal In this offbeat drama, Anne Hathaway plays a recently dumped woman who develops a psychic connection to a giant monster attacking South Korea.  A Monster Calls The Impossible director JA Bayona brings together a cast that includes Felicity Jones, Sigourney Weaver and Liam Neeson to adapt the fantasy novel about a boy befriending a tree creature.  Mascots The latest mockumentary from Best in Show director Christopher Guest centres on the world of competitive mascots, with Parker Posey and Chris O’Dowd starring.  Their Finest A comedy from One Day director Lone Scherfig about film-makers trying to boost morale during the London blitz.
Oliver Stone’s whistleblower drama, a big-budget thriller about the Deepwater Horizon spill and a new documentary on the Meredith Kercher murder trial will premiere at Tiff in Canada