The 2020 Hot Docs Film Festival: Carrying on, in theory

Coming up: Canada announces its Olympic team, which would have been going to Tokyo in June, but, well… you know. 

But first, here’s similar breaking news about the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

Fans of North America’s pre-eminent doc festival – which was to take place April 30-May 10 before being postponed for viral reasons - were intrigued to hear there’d be a lineup announcement this week. 

Did they find a way to stream the entire festival? Maybe use social media? Zoom for audiences of a thousand or more? Drive-ins?

Well, no, no, no and no. 

Folks feast on cell-cultured meat in Liz Marshall’s Meat the Future.

While Hot Docs went ahead and announced its full 2020 lineup of 262 films from 63 countries, it acknowledged it still had no way to show them. 

“Hot Docs is continuing to investigate ways to bring the entire 2020 Festival lineup to Toronto audiences and will announce plans when they are in place,” the announcement read. “The official selection is being announced at this time to honour and celebrate the hard work of the filmmakers and to support them as they seek opportunities in these difficult times.”

And oh yeah, in what would have been a laudable accomplishment in the struggle for gender parity, 51% of the films that would have played Hot Docs would have been directed by women.

We’ll address the lineup of what we won’t be seeing just yet presently. 

In the meantime, CBC has stepped in to partly fill the void for doc fans, programming seven of the higher-profile 2020 Hot Docs films weekly starting Thursday, April 16 at 8 p.m. ET on CBC and CBC Gem, and at 9 p.m. ET on the documentary channel. First up is MADE YOU LOOK: A True Story About Fake Art by Barry Avrich, telling the story of the largest art fraud in American history.

That follows on Thursday, April 23 with Elizabeth St. Philip’s 9/11 KIDS, which catches up with the 16 schoolchildren who were listening to President George W. Bush read The Pet Goat when he got news of the planes hitting the World Trade Centre towers.

On Thursday, April 30, the network will run FINDING SALLY, Tamara Mariam Dawit’s exploration of a mysterious aunt, the daughter of an Ethiopian diplomat stationed in Ottawa, who ended up an anti-government revolutionary and among Ethiopia’s most-wanted “terrorists.”

Ever try an $18,000 meatball? MEAT THE FUTURE (May 7) is the latest from animal activist Liz Marshall (The Ghosts in our Machine), about the progress of cell-cultured meat production, which could allow us all to still be carnivores without ever killing a cow, pig or chicken.

On May 14, it’s THEY CALL ME DR. MIAMI, Jean-Simon Chartier’s profile of top plastic surgeon and social media star Dr. Michael Salzhauer, who livestreams his breast jobs and butt lifts on Snapchat for audiences of millions.

INFLUENCE (May 21) by South Africans Richard Poplak and Diana Neille), profiles the late ad agent turned political fixer Lord Tim Bell, who used the resources of Saatchi & Saatchi to elect Margaret Thatcher, and who “weaponized” advertising to undermine governments and soften the images of dictators.

Finally, on May 28, there’s Nathalie Bibeau’s  THE WALRUS AND THE WHISTLEBLOWER about a lawsuit against a whistleblower at a marine mammal attraction, and a thwarted attempt to steal a walrus amid the backdrop of the end-captivity movement.

Meanwhile, back at Hot Docs, the films that have been chosen -  but which we won’t see just yet - include what would have been the world premiere of Hong Kong Moments, Bing Zhou’s  filmed account of the street battles between pro-democracy and police in Hong Kong last year, The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show, the recounting of a landmark moment in network TV amid the civil rights movement, Larry Flynt For President, the story of the Hustler magazine publisher’s provocative run for President, and Leap of Faith: William Friedkin On The Exorcist, in which the Oscar-winning director traces the tortured route of his horror masterpiece to the screen.

For a complete list of Hot Docs’ theoretical line-up, click HERE.