North America’s largest documentary film festival, Hot Docs, returns for its 31st edition from April 25 to May 5 in Toronto.
As a result of the festival’s financial crisis, there will be fewer films than last year: some thirty fewer. But there will still be enough to get your teeth into, with 168 films from 64 countries, including 83 international and world premieres.
Money money money
For those of you who haven’t read the latest news, let’s just say it in a nutshell: Hot Docs isn’t doing too well. Last month, Hot Docs President Marie Nelson alerted the media about the dire financial situation of the organization, which has never really recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the pandemic had led to huge losses in revenue, with the closure of the Bloor Street cinema it operates throughout the year and the virtual organization of its festival. Nelson argues that more funding is needed to sustain the festival with its ambitious program of over 200 films, its marketplace and its multitude of industry conferences.
Marie Nelson
Should Hot Docs be saved? Is this the end of the festival? I don’t really believe so, but it’s a good strategy to put the spotlight on the festival by involving both the French and English-language media, and thus put pressure on the funders. It’s important to remember that Hot Docs’ situation is not unique in Canada or anywhere else in the world. The Clermont-Ferrand festival in France, the world’s largest festival dedicated to short films, suffered cuts in public funding in 2024, forcing management to reduce its program for its February edition. Or the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival, the world’s largest aboriginal film and media arts festival in Toronto, has cancelled its June 2024 edition and postponed it until 2025. These are tough times for artists, and also for festivals, the primary launching platform for works of art, but all is going well for behemoths like Netflix, which continue to accumulate subscribers and revenue.
Limited public finances in the cultural sector lead to Cornelian dilemmas on the part of decision-makers, who may strip one organization to clothe another. What remains for these organizations in eternal need of funding are the power games and circles of influence that lead to maneuvers to pull the rug out from under them, with varying degrees of success. The issue of profitability, increasingly hammered home by decision-makers in the broadcasting sector and more generally in cultural action, will always favor the strongest and discourage the weakest who fight for a few dollars to keep alive their passion for transmitting orphan works to audiences in search of spectators.
In this sadly recurring story of lack of means, it’s always the creators, and the entire production and distribution chain, who pay the price. Festivals will always need to be transfused with public funds; it’s in the DNA of their business model never to be profitable.
Independent cinemas and festivals going out of business never bode well for the expression of cultural diversity. It leaves even more room for American platforms, which, driven by artificial intelligence algorithms or even humanoid programmers, are further massacring discovery, curiosity and independent cinema.
Wave of departures
Even though Hot Docs is in financial difficulty, it’s still going strong this year, and will probably be there again next year. On the other hand, it will find itself emptied of its programming team, who stormed out of the festival just before the program was unveiled on March 26. 10 programmers – Samah Ali, Vivian Belik, Jesse Cumming, Angie Driscoll, Margaret Pereira, Gabor Pertic, KaitlynnTomaselli, MyrociaWatamaniuk, Mariam Zaidi and Yiqian Zhang – announced their departure on social media on March 24. Members of the programming team had been with the company for over 20 years, including Myrocia Watamaniuk, Senior International Feature Film Programmer, and Angie Driscoll, Senior International Feature Film and Short Film Programmer.
“I have made the heartbreaking choice to leave Hot Docs Festival 2024.I do so along with 9 of my colleagues, listed below.I will continue to fight for films and filmmakers – they are the foundation of all film festivals and the reason I do this job.”
Joint statement from the 10 programmers who have resigned
In the wake of this debacle, the festival announced the departure of Artistic Director Hussain Currimbhoy for “personal reasons” on March 20. It was later revealed in the press that he was facing multiple allegations of “serious mismanagement” and the promotion of a “toxic work environment”, which ultimately led to the mass resignation of the 10 employees. In short, Hot Docs’ management must now wipe the slate clean, take assessment and get back on its feet in order to regain the programmers’ soul for which the festival is renowned, and also prove to backers that the festival is not in the doldrums.
Cyclical effect or not, I found this year’s programming less ambitious and embodied than previous editions. Above all, the Canadian Spectrum Competition section seems less packed than usual and, in this section, many of the films selected share the same question of family memory and the use of archives. I have some reservations as to whether this corpus of 13 feature-length films is representative of current documentary creation in Canada. Perhaps even more curious is the near-absence of the war in Ukraine among the programming choices (apart from Porcelain War). Last year, the annual Made in program made room for the Ukraine, with a selection of extraordinary films by now-departed programmer Myrocia Watamaniuk.
That said, there are many promising films among the 168 titles. In my next article, I’ll share the 15 films that caught my eye. Stay tuned.
