Docs are indeed hot. Maybe it’s due to the fact that with such extreme and dramatic real-life, realtime images all over the news these days, the dramas and comedies are starting to look artificial and banal. It could be that in these tighter economic times, shot-on-video docs present a necessary alternative to dramatic production. Whatever the case, there is clearly a larger-than-ever audience for a less constructed rendition of reality, its most low-rent manifestation being the ‘reality TV’ overwhelming the airwaves.

The success of Toronto’s Hot Docs further illustrates the growing interest in reality entertainment. Last year, the documentary fest welcomed 25,000 visitors, and this year Hot Docs executive director Chris McDonald had expected 30,000. However, the recent attention on the SARS outbreak in the city might ultimately have a negative impact.

‘We have had a few cancellations – two or three filmmakers and two or three broadcasters,’ McDonald says. ‘It looks like our industry delegate numbers are approximately on target. I will not be surprised to see our numbers go down marginally… It’s certainly not going to help.’

Hot Docs organizers have sent out e-mails to their general delegate list referring them to the Health Canada and Ontario Ministry of Health websites, which insist that travelling to Toronto remains safe.

The event, celebrating its 10th anniversary, takes place from April 25 to May 4, featuring screenings of 122 films at venues including the Royal, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Bloor, the Uptown and Innis Town Hall. The Canadian Independent Film Caucus, Hot Docs’ founder, is taking the opportunity to announce its rebranding as the Documentary Organization of Canada (see story, p. 5).

As part of the celebration, Hot Docs is presenting a free screening of its opening-night films, Sundance Audience Award-winner My Flesh and Blood, about a family of 11 special-needs kids, along with Jay Rosenblatt’s short I Used to Be a Filmmaker. Closing night is also gratis, featuring Toronto-based Joseph Blasioli’s The Last Round, about the famed George Chuvalo-Muhammad Ali bout in 1966, paired with El Ring, a short about boxing in Cuba.

The competitive Canadian Spectrum program will this year feature a record 33 films, pared down from 350 submissions. The selection includes 14 features, 10 mid-length docs and nine shorts. Opening the program is Men of the Deeps by John Walker (A Winter Tan, The Fairy Faith), about a choir of Cape Breton coal miners.

Also competitive, the International Showcase includes 48 works from more than 800 submissions. There will be 29 features, nine mid-lengths and 11 shorts, with South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the U.S. all represented. This year’s National Spotlight is on the U.K., featuring a baker’s dozen worth of features. The Hot Docs Blue Ribbon Jury will present a total of 12 awards.

Made In… is a new non-competitive series taking a look at the non-fiction exports of one country in particular, launching with seven works from Taiwan. Focus On will screen films by Canadian director Shelley Saywell, whose work focuses heavily on human rights. Most topical is her new Generation of Hate, which looks at the lives of Iraqis since the Persian Gulf War.

Hot Docs will present the 2003 Outstanding Achievement Award to U.K. filmmaker Nick Broomfield on May 4. Broomfield’s retrospective will include his recent Biggie and Tupac, which examines the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. Broomfield and Alanis Obomsawin (Kanehsataki – 270 Years of Resistance) will be heading up this year’s Master Classes, which endeavor to examine doc issues, enhance skills, facilitate networking and help find financing.

Legendary German director Werner Herzog (Lessons of Darkness, Fitzcarraldo) will be on hand for the screening of his latest, Wheel of Time, which travels from Austria to India for the Kalachakra Initiation Buddhist ritual.

Of Hot Docs many market events, the Toronto Documentary Forum is front and centre. A roundtable pitch forum helping filmmakers from around the globe raise co-financing from the international market, the two-day event sees 36 preselected projects pitched by their producer and lead broadcaster to commissioning editors and acquisition executives. According to Hot Docs, the bilingual event has helped raise nearly $4 million in the past three years, with 60% of projects pitched last year reporting success in raising additional funding.

More information on Hot Docs screenings and events is available on the website.

-www.hotdocs.ca