Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre and Design Exchange hosted the start of Hot Docs on Thursday night, drawing a not-quite capacity crowd to the Canadian premiere of In the Shadow of the Moon and a full house of filmmakers, broadcasters and others to its filled-to-the-brim after-party.

Organizers Chris McDonald, Michael McMahon and Sean Farnel opened the documentary fest noting that this year’s edition includes an unprecedented 129 films, selected out of nearly 1,750 that were submitted. McDonald said he is especially pleased with the increase in attendance for Docs in Schools, a touring program for high schools, which will reach 17,000 students this year, up from 7,000.

Farnel introduced Shadow of the Moon, a celebratory feature about the Apollo lunar landings of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Slated for theatrical release through ThinkFilm, the film mixes footage from the moon and outer space with recent interviews with the astronauts who flew the missions.

In a question-and-answer period after the screening, director David Sington emphasized that his film captures a period when the U.S. commanded respect around the world. Now, he offered, the country lacks ‘the confidence it showed during the time of the Apollo space program,’ and is ‘afraid’ of how it is regarded internationally.

In an aside, Sington explained that some of the film’s best shots, taken from the interior of the rockets, were from cameras that were immediately ejected and recovered in mid-air by trailing military aircraft equipped with nets.

Later, at the Design Exchange nightspot, Sington was treated warmly by fellow fest attendees including Albert Nerenberg and Rob Spence (Let’s All Hate Toronto) and Jamie Kastner (Kike Like Me). Also in the crowd were John Philp (Yoga, Inc. ), producer Daniel Iron (Manufactured Landscapes), director Peter Raymont (Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire), Hot Docs juror Mark Achbar (The Corporation), Toronto International Film Festival co-director Noah Cowan and Bravo!FACT executive director Judy Gladstone.