Turning up the deal-making quotient

Hot Docs, Canada’s annual documentary forum produced by the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, is up for its second round in Toronto Feb. 16-19, with a series of industry workshops, public screenings of 30 films nominated in seven categories and a closing night awards show.

Year one was a resounding success with 271 delegates enrolled and a healthy turnout for public screenings of the nominated docs. The plan this year is to improve on that.

Debbie Nightingale, executive director of the cifc, says filling a 300-seat capacity for the industry conference and expanding public awareness are on the agenda, but number one is to turn up the deal-making quotient.

‘We want to increase the ability for people to do business. Last year, they started to make contacts, so this year we have made a concerted effort to bring in more buyers. We’ve got them coming in from everywhere – from across the country, from Britain and from Australia.’

Among notable buyers flying in are Geoffrey Barnes of Australia’s sbs, Bill Harris of Arts & Entertainment, Phil George of bbc Wales, and Chris Hawes, The Discovery Channel’s (u.s.) European commissioning editor for documentaries.

One of the biggest coups for Hot Docs this year is the addition of a pitch session hosted by producer Pat Ferns and tailored for documentarians. For years, Ferns’ pitching workshops at the Banff Television Festival have been a runaway success. Nightingale says Ferns has been accumulating potential pitches from documentary filmmakers with an eye to gathering a wide collection of variables, covering short and long formats, series, one-offs and different treatments of the form.

Speakers at the session include Don Haig of the National Film Board’s Studio C, Rudy Buttignol of tvontario, cbc’s Carol Moore Ede and Mark Starowicz, and Great North Productions’ Andy Thomson.

As proven time and again with documentaries (most recently, Trouble With Evan and The Valour and the Horror), legalities can be mighty messy for filmmaker and broadcaster alike.

‘Mutadis, Mutandis’ is a Hot Docs session that tackles the legalities of documentary filmmaking, addressing the battles instigated between wounded parties and their ‘attackers.’

McMillan Binch lawyer Diana Cafazzo, cbc senior legal council Daniel Henry, the 5th estate producer Neil Docherty and George Miller (a member of the defense for the airmen who took The Valour to task) are on the panel, with Peter Raymont moderating.

Steve James, director of the much-acclaimed u.s. documentary Hoop Dreams, will be featured with notable Canadian director Jacques Godbout in ‘Different Visions, Different Styles,’ a session exploring form and content. Catherine Olsen of CBC Newsworld’s The Passionate Eye will host.

Kicking off the public screenings is Godbout’s latest offering, L’Affaire Norman William, a look at a subversive chameleon-like character who has over a dozen different identities. Also on the list is Trouble With Evan, which has been pulled from the public screening block in Canada in deference to the family featured in the film.

Hot Docs crossed language barriers in its first year, a step considered by many caucus members as significant. Nightingale says she hopes to pick up where last year left off with a reception to honor filmmakers from Quebec and a possible impromptu panel discussion between English- and French-Canadian filmmakers about the varying conditions in which they work.

While it was hoped at the close of last year’s Hot Docs that an extra day of workshops would be added, the required funds did not appear. Instead, Nightingale says a number of closed sessions, such as one between the cifc and the Independent Documentary Association, will take place over the weekend.