There was a lot of pitching but very little catching at the Hot Docs’ Toronto Documentary Forum.

The tone was set early on Wednesday when new TDF director Elizabeth Radshaw acknowledged that there were ‘two elephants in the room — swine flu and the Big Recession.’

Fewer commissioning editors made the trip from Europe, thanks to those pesky pachyderms, and those who did show up were not in a generous mood. During the morning sessions, such high-profile Canadian coproductions as The Guantanamo Trap and Sled Dog Soldiers received rough rides from potential funders, and that trend continued through the latter part of the day.

Where’s My Goat?, the only Canadian feature doc pitched in the final session, was not treated gently by the seasoned group of commissioning editors sitting around the table. Newfoundland producer/director Christopher Richardson’s proposed doc examines the modern trend towards giving ethical gifts instead of branded swag. His amusing trailer, which formed a large chunk of his pitch, followed his personal journey to Zambia to find the goat he’d purchased through an NGO gift program. If fully financed to $500,000, Richardson’s intention is to shoot footage in Las Vegas, the U.K. and Zambia to contrast different notions of gifts and examine the effectiveness of ethical giving.

The response to the jocular tone of the trailer was not positive. Claire Aguilar of PBS-ITVS expressed the ‘wish that it was funnier,’ while Tabitha Jackson of the U.K.’s Channel 4 observed that she ‘felt manipulated…[with this] advocacy through the back door.’

Most editors felt that Richardson had already reached his conclusion that ethical gifts are good and, despite his friendly protests, he seemed to make little headway in persuading the table that he was still investigating the situation. Perhaps the funniest ‘no’ vote came from Finland’s YLE, which has already commissioned a film called Where’s My Forest?

John Philp received similar treatment from the editors. The personable Australian, whose last film Yoga Inc. played to packed houses at a previous Hot Docs, didn’t score another Toronto success with his Misha’s War. Philp pitched the story of Mikheil ‘Misha’ Saakashvili, the controversial president of Georgia, who has gone from ‘the man who turned a post-Soviet swamp into a beacon of liberty’ into a despised figure. The reason? He led Georgia into a bloody war against Russia, which cost it many lives as well as two breakaway provinces.

Legendary BBC commissioning editor Nick Fraser expressed doubt that Saakashvili would still be president in six months. Many — from the American show Wide Angle to Holland’s VPRO — found the project to be ‘too timely’ and thought that audiences would not be interested in these events a year from now, when the doc would be completed.

Other projects did better, with the two winners being a three-part series on young people in China’s biggest metropolis called Shanghai Tales, and an incisive British doc on the media frenzy surrounding the notorious Meredith Kercher murder case entitled Making a Killing. Perhaps the broadcasters’ viewpoints are growing kinder as the sessions continue Thursday.

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Marc Glassman reports from day two of the Toronto Documentary Forum in tomorrow’s Playback Daily.