For the first time, attendees to this year’s Hot Docs documentary film festival in Toronto can use the event to turn their ideas into product – with the help of the Toronto Documentary Forum, a pitching forum modeled on and partnered with the Forum for International Co-financing of Documentaries in Amsterdam. The two-day forum, running May 3-4, will allow would-be filmmakers 15 minutes each to pitch their concepts to a panel of commissioning editors from broadcasters around the world. Unlike similar sessions at other industry gatherings, this is no simulation: real money is up for grabs.

Michaelle McLean, director of the tdf, says her goal for the forum is ‘to create a critical mass of people from both sides of the buying and selling equation to assist producers from Canada and around the world to raise cofinancing for their projects.’

‘The festival is not just a place for showcasing the fruits of filmmakers’ labors, but also a hothouse for producers. We hope that what we see at the tdf this year, we will see in a year or two at Hot Docs.’

Hot Docs (May 1-7), in its seventh, and, organizers say, biggest year, also includes a Spotlight on Australia. Documentary film from Down Under, this year’s featured country, is represented by projects that range from Bush Mechanics, which looks at how bush people somehow keep their cars on the road, to My One-legged Dream Lover, which takes audiences into the world of the amputee fetishist.

International flavor is also offered by the International Showcase, expanded from last year’s inaugural seven documentary projects to 23, selected from a field of 400. The pieces come from locations as varied as Brazil, Denmark and Slovenia.

The festival’s Canadian Nominee Program consists of 47 films nominated in categories including Best Feature, Best Series, Best History, Best Cultural and Best Biography. Nineteen of the films nominated are premiering at the festival.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winners, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, will present retrospectives of their work.

Films will be screened at Toronto’s Royal Theatre and Carlton Cinemas.