Sam Dunn says his Neil Peart documentary aims to show the private man behind the drummer, premiering at TIFF.
Sam Dunn has said the point of returning to Rush sixteen years after his last film was to get at the person rather than the player. “Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple“, which Dunn directed with Scot McFadyen, receives its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month, and the pair built it around friends who knew the drummer away from the kit.
Asked by Andria Case of CTV News why he went back to Rush after 2010’s “Beyond The Lighted Stage“, Dunn said there was a separate story to tell.
“Well, Neil Peart is one of the greatest rock drummers of all time. He is a remarkable lyricist, was an author, and we hope what this documentary will reveal is [that he was] also a very loyal and loving friend, an inspiration to a lot of people. And so we just felt that even though we did the Rush documentary all those years ago, that there was a film to be made about Neil,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
On what audiences might not know about him, he said: “Well, I think people know the drummer and the lyricist and the talented artist that he was, but I don’t think people really know much about him personally, ’cause he was quite a guarded person. And so in the film we pulled together a number of friends of his to really tell us about what he was like as a person, and I think what our film reveals is that — I think the word is a real inspiration to a lot of people in their lives. And so, yeah, here we go. Neil Peart story — it’s time to tell it.”
The 96-minute film traces Peart‘s difficult early years as a musician and the rise that followed, with interviews from Rush co-founders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson alongside other drummers.
It also puts Lee and Lifeson back on stage playing Rush material, with four players taking the drum stool: Stewart Copeland of The Police, Danny Carey of Tool, Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gavin Harrison, known for his work with King Crimson and Porcupine Tree. TIFF‘s synopsis describes the result as an exhilarating and poignant tribute.
Dunn and McFadyen work together as Banger Films, whose previous work includes “Iron Maiden: Flight 666” and the “Metal Evolution” series.
Dunn‘s description of Peart as a private man is borne out by how his final years were handled. Peart died on 7 January 2020 in Santa Monica, California, aged 67, three years after being diagnosed with glioblastoma.
The premiere is on 16 September, with a public screening following on 19 September. This year’s Toronto International Film Festival runs from 10 to 20 September. The film then airs on CBC in Canada on 23 September as part of “The Passionate Eye“.
The premiere lands midway through Rush‘s first touring campaign since Peart‘s death. The “Fifty Something” tour opened on June 7 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, the same building where the band played their final show with him in 2015 at the close of the “R40” tour.
Lee and Lifeson are joined on that run by German drummer Anika Nilles, who prepared for the job by studying Peart‘s parts song by song, and keyboardist Loren Gold, a touring member of The Who and Chicago. Lee has explained that the band deliberately avoided hiring a well-known rock drummer to sidestep the comparisons that would have followed.
The tour runs across Canada, the United States and Mexico as a series of “evening with” shows, two sets a night, with the setlist changing at every stop from a working pool of around 35 songs. The dates announced in October 2025 sold out at once, the run was doubled, and more shows were added after that. Lee has also ruled out new Rush music and acknowledged there are limits to how much longer he can tour.
The 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, its 51st edition, runs from September 10 to September 20 and features 293 films.
