This year’s sixth annual Toronto Documentary Forum will provide more opportunities for filmmakers seeking funding and will give broadcasters a stronger voice at the proceedings. The new initiatives come after event director Michaelle McLean did an evaluation of TDF’s first five years.

Traditionally, TDF has offered an environment for doc filmmakers and broadcasters to get acquainted, but it’s also a crucial chance for sellers to pitch to buyers. This year, 30 projects have been chosen for pitching, plucked from nearly 160 entries. The selected filmmakers represent 10 countries, including Canada, and will face more than 85 international broadcasters.

No Canadian films were short-listed for the TDF Feature Rough Cuts program, however, in which five pitching slots are granted to filmmakers who have nearly completed the rough cut of their doc without any broadcaster financing. This is one of the new initiatives taken on by the TDF organizers, acting on feedback they received after last year.

According to McLean, another important implementation in 2005 is a chance for filmmakers and financiers to speak more formally at various TDF-sanctioned prearranged meetings. TDF has also elected to allow six participating broadcasters a chance to take the floor to inform delegates about recent doc successes for their networks and what they are looking for in the year ahead.

TDF is also helping to find a Canadian voice to participate in the international television initiative known as The Democracy Project. Four Canadian filmmakers will be selected to pitch their ideas for a doc about democracy. One pitch deemed worthy will receive a cash advance of $10,000 from CBC and the National Film Board to pursue the project.

McLean feels that all of these components make TDF a necessary education for docmakers.

‘You get an opportunity to share information about the market and how people are responding to things,’ says McLean. ‘It provides wonderful market intelligence, unlike any other kind of market format.’

Although a valuable learning experience, the forum can be intimidating to both participants and spectators.

Toronto’s Jamie Kastner pitched his film Djangomania, about 1930s jazz phenom Django Reinhardt, at the doc forum last year, and although his presentation was met with enthusiasm and resulted in three buys from international broadcasters, he witnessed an ugly incident involving a well-respected documentarian.

‘He pitched a film that people just didn’t like the sound of, and [the broadcasters] tore him to shreds,’ says Kastner. ‘There are no guarantees about how things will go.’

Kastner will pitch at the forum again this year. His project Kike Like Me has met the necessary preselection criteria of having 20% to 25% of the financing in place and a broadcast partner on board with a cash stake (requirements that do not apply to the Rough Cut selections). Rudy Buttignol, TVO creative head of docs, drama and network, will stand with Kastner as he pitches a documentary about what it means to be Jewish at this time, loosely based in its execution on John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me.

TDF newbie Kevin Dunn of Winnipeg prodco MidCanada Entertainment will pitch As Seen on TV: The K-Tel Story, about the hugely popular record packager of the 1970s and ’80s. SCTV alum Dave Thomas has been secured to narrate the film and will be part of Dunn’s TDF presentation, as will CTV VP of documentaries Bob Culbert. Dunn promises a couple of other surprises during his 15-minute presentation – anything to help his pitch stand out in the high-pressure environment, he says.

‘You really feel for the people who are pitching to that audience when you’re an observer, but the stress goes up about 300 percent when it’s you,’ says Dunn.

Michael Kot, History Television director, original programming, says that the selected filmmakers should be prepared for a tough time at the forum. Kot was on this year’s TDF selection committee along with Bill Smee (VP, production and development, Discovery Times Channel of the U.S.) and Amit Breuer (Amythos Films of Israel and Canada). He says that the crop of submissions left him ambivalent.

‘I was hoping for a little bit more strength from them,’ says Kot, who admits he has no frame of reference, this being his first year on the selection committee. ‘There are a lot of good projects, but I guess not all of them can be great.’

Other Canadian projects being pitched at TDF include SPAM: The Documentary (Jeannette Loakman and Sally Blake), Blood Sweat & Code – How Computer Games are Transforming the World (Rachel Low), Double Trouble (Alan Handel) and Just a Dollar a Day (Allison Grace).

TDF runs April 27-28.

-www.hotdocs.ca/tdf_intro.cfm