Following the trend set by Sundance Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival, the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival will also open on September 8 with a documentary film, – the world premiere Gala Presentation of From the Sky Down – Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim’s documentary about Irish band U2.

“For the first time in 36 years the Toronto International Film Festival will open with a documentary,” said Cameron Bailey, Co-Director of the Toronto International Film Festival. “Davis Guggenheim returns to the Festival with his powerful marriage of music and film that honours U2’s talent, dedication and music. We look forward to sharing this film with audiences on Opening Night.”

Twenty years after the release of U2’s Achtung Baby (1991), Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud) charts this groundbreaking album with new interviews, stories and unseen footage from Berlin and Dublin. Now a key chapter in their career, Achtung Baby was in Bono’s words “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree.”