If one word sums up the mix of films in this year’s Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, it’s eclectic.

The cinematic menu this year features a healthy blend of socially and politically engaged documentary programming from all over the world, according to Sean Farnel, the fest’s new director of programming.

‘If there is a trend, it’s that documentaries are doing many things, and doing them all very well,’ says Farnel, a former doc programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival. ‘What I’ve noticed is that there is a broad range of forms – some of the films are very cinematic, while others are of broadcast quality. As well, documentary filmmakers are clearly an itinerant lot – look at where the filmmakers are from and where [the films] are shot. This is indeed a very international film festival.’

The numbers back up Farnel’s claim. The 99 films being screened at Hot Docs 2006, which unspools in Toronto April 28 to May 7, include 33 productions/copros from Canada, 23 from the U.S., eight from Israel, seven each from France, Germany and the U.K., five from Japan, and two each from Austria, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands and Spain. This year’s programming also includes special national spotlights on France and Japan.

Farnel adds that while the ability of the documentary form to take on social issues has never been in question, there is growing awareness that docs can also mean big business.

‘For every low-budget documentary we see, there are also films that clearly have a certain commercial viability to them, such as Fuck and Wordplay,’ he says.

The former film, from the U.S., examines the history and use of the ultimate four-letter word, recalling in some respects last year’s release The Aristocrats, a cheaply made doc that shows various comedians performing their version of a notorious dirty joke. Its blue subject matter helped that film earn more than US$6 million at the North American box office for distributor ThinkFilm. Meanwhile, Wordplay, also from the U.S., sounds far tamer – it’s about a crossword puzzle tournament.

The box office prospects for docs have certainly soared in the past five years – after all, the recent Academy Award winner for best doc, March of the Penguins, has reportedly taken in US$121 million worldwide. And this means a priority for the Hot Docs team is ramping up the fest’s industry component to satisfy its 1,700 delegates, says Farnel.

The fest will again roll out Factual Friday (May 5), a series of information-packed industry sessions in which filmmakers can share their knowledge and experience. Sessions will include New Media 101: Mapping the Digital Frontier, in which panelists will talk about expanding platforms of distribution; Global Players: The Discovery Family, which will feature representatives from Discovery Channel discussing recent shifts in their programming; and a one-on-one session with John Willis, director of factual and learning at the BBC.

Some of the screening highlights among Canadian productions include When Elephants Fight (Uganda Rising), by Jesse James Miller and Pete McCormack, which examines the effects of civil war on a group of African children, many of whom have been abducted and used by soldiers as sex slaves. Jean-François Monette and Philip Lewis will premier their doc, Eye on the Guy: Alan B. Stone & the Age of Beefcake, about the late Montreal gay photographer, while Atom Egoyan will screen his documentary Citadel, a camcorder account of his actor-wife Arsinée Khanjian’s return to her native Lebanon after a 28-year absence. Deepa Mehta brings Let’s Talk About It, her film about domestic abuse.

Hot Docs will fete Quebecois director Serge Giguère with a career retrospective, showing his films Oscar Thiffault, Le Réel du mégaphone and Le Roi du drum. (For more on the Canadian films at Hot Docs 2006, see story, p. 22.)

Among the international offerings, one of the most anticipated films is His Big White Self, about South African neo-Nazi leader Eugene Terreblanche. The film is the latest from U.K. director Nick Broomfield (Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer).

Legendary German drama and doc director Werner Herzog (Little Dieter Needs to Fly) will be on hand for a six-film retrospective and to accept Hot Docs’ Outstanding Achievement Award.

www.hotdocs.ca