TORONTO - Films chronicling the soap opera days of actor James Franco, the abuse and addictions suffered by hockey star Theo Fleury and the impact of music heroes Bob Marley and LCD Soundsystem are hitting the big screen at next month's Hot Docs festival.

Organizers for the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival say this year's slate features 189 titles from a record 51 countries and will bring at least a couple of international stars to Toronto.

"We're expecting both James Franco and Rick Springfield to come," said executive director Chris McDonald, singling out Sylvia Caminer's look at Springfield fans in "An Affair of the Heart" as particularly engrossing.

"It's a fascinating look at the people who dedicate a lot of their lives to following somebody whose music had a great impact on them at some point in their lives."

McDonald pointed to several themes emerging from the broader slate.

"We're seeing a lot of films on the economy, on workers' rights, on global issues, on the recession," he said after a presentation Monday at the festival's newly renovated downtown theatre space.

"But there's a lot of funny stuff as well -- a lot of films about romance, a lot of great films on music, a brand new film on Bob Marley which may just end up being the seminal piece on his dramatic life."

Standouts include a look at Franco's tenure on "General Hospital" in Ian Olds' "Francophrenia (Or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is)"; Fleury's battle with booze, drugs and gambling as he confronts his ghosts in Matt Embry and Larry Day's "Theo Fleury: Playing with Fire"; Kevin Macdonald's "definitive" biography of reggae legend Marley; and a chronicle of LCD Soundsystem's farewell show in "Shut Up And Play the Hits."

The festival kicks off April 26 with director Alison Klayman's debut feature documentary, "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," a portrait of the Chinese artist and activist.

The Canadian slate includes several sports-themed films, including Ariel J. Nasr's "The Boxing Girls of Kabul," Carlo Guillermo Proto's horse-riding tale "El Huaso" and Corey Lee's martial arts father-son story "Legend of a Warrior."

Lynne Fernie, senior Canadian programmer, said the various athletics all serve "as metaphors for really profound human journeys."

She noted the Fleury film offers an especially revealing look at his troubled upbringing and difficult road into adulthood.

"It follows him on a book tour where he's touring North America and speaking to groups about sexual abuse and facing his own demons and ghosts of the past," said Fernie.

"He's such an incredible man and a very contentious man too -- he's been through so much that he's not your warm, charming guy all the time. But he's sort of like a Canadian hero.... he won it all, coming from poverty, lost it all, and now is taking his game to a whole new level."

Other notable titles include the Sundance smash "Indie Game: The Movie," which looks at video game developers through the lens of James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot, and Yung Chang's "China Heavyweight," about a boxing coach training poor teens in rural China.

The fest will include two retrospectives: a mid-career look at the work of Emmy Award-winning director John Kastner ("Life With Murder") and a salute to the overall body of work by Quebecois filmmaker Michel Brault ("Orders").

Meanwhile, a new partnership with Cineplex and its Front Row Centre program will allow Hot Docs to beam two Canadian films to more than 50 screens across the country -- while they simultaneously screen at the festival.

"So you'll have an introduction from the filmmaker, you'll watch the film in Kamloops or Vancouver or Montreal, and then you will take part in a live Q&A with the filmmaker after the screening," said McDonald.

"I don't know any festival that's done this before."

Other titles on deck include a biography of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Chris James Thompson's "Jeff," while the classic doc series program Documentary Plays Itself looks at Oscar-nominated screenwriter Terry Gilliam's struggle to make a film about Don Quixote in "Lost in La Mancha" and Phie Ambo's "Gambler," which follows director Nicholas Winding Refn as he shoots sequels of his cult classic.

Toronto-based director Maya Gallus returns to the festival with "The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche," which digs into the private life of the enigmatic female writer.

First-time feature director Angad Singh Bhalla said he spent nearly five years working on his film "Herman's House," about imprisoned Black Panther activist Herman Wallace.

"We started working in June 2007 and it was an amazing journey to start there and now be here at the Hot Docs press conference being ready to premiere," said the 32-year-old Bhalla.

"I can't think of a better festival to premiere it than in your hometown in front of your friends in family, a festival I'd grown up coming to."

Hot Docs runs until May 6.