Elizabeth Radshaw: Last News

Jennie Punter Hot Docs’ market events remain online in 2022 to maximize interactions between feature-doc teams, financiers, and other decision-makers, but its three-day, in-person industry conference is mingling hot topics (Ukraine, equity), first looks (works-in-progress screenings), and networking ops (lounges and lunches) to facilitate what the festival’s industry program director Elizabeth Radshaw calls “moments of serendipity.”Hot Docs Industry LIVE unfolds April 30 to May 2 in the TIFF Bell Lightbox and nearby Art Gallery of Ontario, repositioning the industry hub in Toronto’s downtown business and entertainment district—familiar ground to many international industry reps—and allowing for deeper integration between Hot Docs’ public screening and industry components. 2022’s transitional, hybrid edition continues the market format of the past two years, online-only editions of the Forum—the festival’s marquee pitch event—and the one-on-one Dealmaker and Distribution Rendezvous meeting programs, which proved successful.“We were able to bring in buyers that were too busy with Cannes to attend, but they could take a ton of meetings online,” Radshaw told Variety last week.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, has unveiled the projects it has selected for the 24th edition of the Hot Docs Forum, the financing event aimed at securing co-productions and funds for feature length documentaries. The Forum returns in-person to Toronto’s Hart House on May 2 and 3 as part of festival, which runs April 27 to May 7. Nineteen projects representing 16 countries and featuring 23 filmmakers, 12 of whom are women and 11 of whom are black, indigenous and people of color, will pitch to international decision makers and members of the documentary community. An additional Wild Card pitch will be selected live at the Forum.

Jennie Punter Twenty projects from 19 countries have been selected for the 23rd edition of the Hot Docs Forum, the marquee feature financing event of the annual documentary festival, which runs in hybrid format from April 28 to May 8 in Toronto.Of the projects’ 26 filmmakers, 14 are women, and 15 are BIPOC. Projects include stories around space rocks, solar power and crusading mushrooms, and process docs that follow characters in their homelands, schools and warzones over several years.Over two days in advance of the festival, Forum project teams present their seven-minute pre-recorded pitches to a “round table” of decision-makers and financiers, from whom they then receive eight minutes of live feedback, which is also recorded.

The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival has gone to plan B— a virtual market for film buyers and sellers— after the physical festival set to run April 30-May 10 in Toronto was canceled as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic. "Although it will never replace the powerful human connection of coming together in community, we're grateful to be able to host our industry activities virtually, allowing all of us to support outstanding and outspoken films getting made," Elizabeth Radshaw, industry programs director for Hot Docs, said Thursday in a statement.