Hot Docs sets sail with Floating Polar Film Festival

August 8, 2012 by Adam Benzine

Canadian festival Hot Docs is teaming up with travel company Quark Expeditions to launch the Floating Polar Film Festival, which will see a curated selection of docs playing aboard a luxury arctic cruise ship (pictured).

The festival will feature during the inaugural 22-day ‘Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica via Buenos Aires: Explorers and Kings’ voyage on the Sea Spirit (pictured above), Quark’s luxury adventure ‘all-suites’ ship.

It will consist of a documentary program of eight films on topics “that may range from ecology and the environment to exploration and adventure,” according to Hot Docs. The full program will be announced in summer 2013.

“In many ways it is a natural partnership,” said Hot Docs MD Brett Hendrie in a statement. “Like Quark Expeditions’ clientele, documentary audiences are naturally curious and adventurous learners who want to discover more about the world around them. What better way to complement their eye-opening travels than with eye-opening films?”

The Sea Spirit’s journey starts on Nov. 2, 2013. The initiative is the latest in a series of extensions for Hot Docs, which have propelled the organization beyond its festival roots.

Earlier this year it opened the doors to its own theater, the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, and launched its own crowdfunding initiative, Doc Ignite.

This year’s festival also branched out beyond Toronto via Hot Docs Live!, a partnership with Cineplex Entertainment that saw docs simulcast across Canada in provinces including Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

 

Tags: Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, Brett Hendrie, Doc Ignite, Floating Polar Film Festival, Hot Docs, Hot Docs Live, Quark Expeditions