A new documentary on Terry Fox, showcasing unreleased footage, has unveiled its trailer ahead of its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) next month. Titled “Run Terry Run,” the film delves into Fox’s historic 1980 Marathon of Hope using nearly 100 recently discovered reels of archival footage.
The trailer includes insights from key figures such as Doug Alward, a close friend and van driver, Darrell Fox, Terry’s younger brother, and Terry Fox himself, as he embarked on his cross-Canada run at the age of 21 to raise funds for cancer research after losing his leg to osteogenic sarcoma.
Director Sean Menard from Toronto obtained the raw footage from filmmaker John Simpson, who had originally thought the footage was lost. With support from the Terry Fox Foundation, Menard located the reels in a Toronto storage unit and restored them to 4K quality for his documentary, which premiered at Roy Thomson Hall last year.
The documentary, devoid of traditional interviews, features voiceovers from key individuals like Leslie Scrivener, the first journalist to cover the Marathon of Hope, and Darryl Sittler, the former captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs who ran alongside Terry during part of his journey.
Terry Fox initiated his marathon on April 12, 1980, and covered 5,373 kilometers before halting near Thunder Bay due to cancer spreading to his lungs. Despite his passing in 1981, Fox’s efforts raised over $24 million at the time, with the Terry Fox Foundation recently surpassing $1 billion in cancer research funds.
“Run Terry Run” highlights Fox’s evolution from a young and ambitious runner to a confident individual managing global attention while pushing boundaries. The documentary’s original score was composed by Tom Caffey, known for his work on the Michael Jordan Netflix series “The Last Dance.”
The documentary is set to premiere at TIFF on September 19, preceding the 46th annual Terry Fox Run, and will hit theaters on October 9, 2026.