Hot Docs

Fans of his role as Vincent Chase on HBO’s Entourage may be surprised to learn that actor Adrian Grenier has a side career making first-person documentaries. Teenage Paparazzo is his second film, following Shot in the Dark. Here, encountering a 13-year-old paparazzo, Austin Visschedyk, Grenier wonders what it means when a culture beckons a kid into becoming a celebrity-stalking photographer. The actor gets great access to Visschedyk, who is initially quite excited with the attention and the 15 minutes of fame it brings. Famous for playing a famous actor, able to pull in some major celebs (Paris Hilton, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Lindsay Lohan), and earning the trust of the paparazzo veterans with whom Austin runs (often into the wee hours), Grenier makes the most of a privileged perspective. An appealing, astute, and layered peek into the strangely symbiotic tensions between celebrities and those obsessed with capturing and consuming their fame. - Sean Farnel

Co-presented with CONTACT Toronto Photography Festival.