The board of directors of the embattled Hot Docs has announced that Marie Nelson has tendered her resignation as president of the organization, after serving one year in the role.

In a release, the board thanked Nelson for her leadership of the organization during her brief tenure in the role, highlighting in particular the success of the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, which, according to the board, reached an average per-screening attendance that neared pre-pandemic levels and exceeded its box-office revenue target by 12%.

“We are proud of the work Hot Docs has accomplished with Marie at the helm,” the board stated in the release. “As Hot Docs navigates its next chapter, we are fortunate to have the continued stewardship of interim executive director Janice Dawe and managing director Heidi Tao Yang.”

Nelson (pictured) — a veteran U.S. media executive who had previously held senior roles at such organizations as ABC News/Disney, PBS and Viacom/BET Networks — took over leadership of the Toronto-based Hot Docs in July 2023, in the midst of turbulence in the organization’s executive ranks.

Among other notable departures, the previous year had seen Heather Conway step down as Hot Docs co-president and executive director after serving only six months in the posts; one year later, she was followed by her fellow co-president, 25-year Hot Docs veteran Chris McDonald, whose departure from the now–sole president role cleared the way for Nelson’s appointment.

Eight months later, March brought about a perfect storm for the organization as Nelson issued a public appeal for financial aid; recently appointed artistic director Hussain Currimbhoy abruptly departed his role for “personal reasons”; and 10 members of the programming team staged a mass exodus in the lead-up to the 2024 festival, later releasing a joint statement in which they alleged a systemic pattern of disrespect and mismanagement from members of Hot Docs’ senior leadership team.

One week before the launch of the 2024 festival in April, Hot Docs issued a statement decrying the fact that the organization had not been included in the $120 million earmarked for the Canadian artistic sector in the federal government’s 2024 budget (which, notably, had provided $23 million over three years to the neighbouring Toronto International Film Festival to launch a market connected to its annual event).

Shortly after the wrap-up of the 2024 Hot Docs festival the following month, the organization announced that it would close its year-round home, the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, for three months as of June 12 in order to “address our immediate cash flow needs[,] create a necessary window for the team to regroup and engage in critical strategic planning to address our deficit [and] continue key conversations with government partners to further seek solutions.”

A week into the closure, the board opted to reduce its membership to a three-person “working board” in order to “effectively and efficiently navigate the critical financial obstacles facing the organization over the upcoming months.”

This story originally appeared in Realscreen

Photo by Mimi Ho.