‘A Mother Apart’ Producer Alison Duke to Receive Don Haig Award at Hot Docs

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the Cannes market, Lionsgate has taken North American rights off the table on one of the bigger-budget new packages that’ll be on sale next week: that’s action-thriller Mutiny, which will star action evergreen Jason Statham (Fast & Furious) and be directed by Jean-François Richet (Plane).

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sam Claflin (“Daisy Jones & the Six,” “Peaky Blinders,” the Hunger Games franchise) and Rupert Friend (“Asteroid City,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Homeland”) will star in the World War II action thriller “Perdition” from writer-director Henry Dunham (“The Standoff at Sparrow Creek”). Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee will produce for Thunder Road Pictures, whose credits include the John Wick franchise, with Claflin executive producing.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large “The Young and the Restless” icon Melody Thomas Scott, veteran soap opera producer Edward J. Scott and public TV food host Lidia Bastianich are all set to receive Lifetime Achievement awards at this year’s Daytime Emmys.

EXCLUSIVE: Nicolas Cage, FKA Twigs, Noah Jupe and Souheila Yacoub are set to star in Egyptian-American director Lotfy Nathan’s The Carpenter’s Son exploring the rarely told story of the childhood of Jesus with a horror take.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Elaine Epstein says that winning Hot Docs Forum’s top First Look prize of Can $20,000 cash for her film “Arrest the Midwife” is a “game changer.” The project, which has been on a close to year-long hiatus, will now finally be able to resume due to the award. “The last money we raised was 10 months ago,” Epstein said. “So it’s been a while.

Jennie Punter Nishta Jain’s “Farming the Revolution” has won Hot Docs’ Best International Feature Documentary Award, it was announced Friday at the festival’s awards ceremony, held in Toronto at the Centre for Social Innovation–Annex. Produced by Jain (Raintree Films) and Valérie Montmartin (Little Big Story) and co-directed by cinematographer Akash Basumatari, the film follows the massive year-long gathering of Indian farmers protesting unjust new farm laws that they felt would impact their markets. The jury said, “‘Farming the Revolution’ spotlights the power of ordinary people with an enduring cinematic sophistication and an indomitable lyrical presence.” The award comes with a Cnd.

Jennie Punter Spain’s push to position itself as a premier player in the world’s film and TV industries extends to the documentary zone, as both audiences and industry delegates discovered in the impressive display of the country’s finished and work-in-progress films and co-production know-how at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival this week. According to the European Audiovisual Observatory’s Yearbook 2023/2024, Spain is the European leader in documentary production, with 153 films in 2022 (Italy was second with 137, Switzerland third with 83)—a sign that Spain’s €1.6 billion public investment in the strategic sector, intended to spur production growth for the 2021-2025 period, has taken root in the doc space.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Meryl Streep will receive the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival, Variety has learned. Luring the Oscar winner is yet another feat for this Cannes edition, which will bring together a flurry Hollywood legends. Notably, George Lucas will receive the honorary Palme d’Or during the closing ceremony; Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” are playing in competition; and George Miller‘s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Kevin Costner’s Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga” are playing out of competition.

Addie Morfoot Contributor The Hot Docs Forum, the festival’s industry centerpiece, wrapped Wednesday with its most lively awards announcements in recent memory—complete with flamenco guitar, song and dance courtesy of Spain, this year’s country in focus—as hundreds of industry delegates assembled under the sun in the courtyard of Toronto’s Hart House. Elaine Epstein’s “Arrest the Midwife”—one of 20 projects presented to key funders and decision-makers as well as filmmakers, producers and other observers at the two-day Forum pitch event—won the First Look first prize of Can $20,000 cash.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Producer Ina Fichman, Oscar nominated for “Fire of Love,” was at the 25th edition of Hot Docs Forum on Tuesday to pitch her latest project “Ba’s Book.” Directed by Canadian filmmaker Ashley Da-Le Duong, the hybrid docu focuses on Duong’s father and his experiences living through both the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution. “Let me take you somewhere for a moment,” Duong told the Forum audience and participating distributors including Arte, A24 and Al Jazeera. “It’s 1968 and a young man stands in the middle of a rice paddy field and looks up and sees a helicopter.

Holly Jones Buenos Aires-based boutique sales outfit Compañía de Cine has acquired international rights to Mauro Colombo’s contemplative second feature, “Wild Gleaming Space,” (“Luminoso Espacio Salvaje”) ahead of its global bow on Wednesday at Toronto’s Hot Docs, which runs April 25 to May 5. Shot in Panama, Chile, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium, the film weaves together intimate and resounding first-person accounts from its subjects and dynamic natural backdrops in an ambitious attempt to reach out and document the abstract confluence of life and death.

Naman Ramachandran Eminent Indian documentarian Nishtha Jain’s latest effort is an account of the epic, year-long farmers’ protest that took place in India in 2020-21. “Farming the Revolution,” which world premieres at Hot Docs, follows the millions of Indian farmers who gathered during the height of COVID-19 lockdown at the borders of the country’s capital, Delhi, to protest against newly enacted farm laws. The farmers believed that if implemented, these laws would negatively impact the government-protected farmers’ markets, leaving them to the vagaries of the free market.

Addie Morfoot Contributor In “The Strike,” directors Joebill Munoz and Lucas Guilkey chronicle a 2013 prison hunger strike that changed imprisonment policies across the U.S. The doc tells the story of America’s supermax prison Pelican Bay, which opened in 1989 and was designed specifically for mass-scale solitary confinement. For decades, the California prison held mostly Black and Brown men alone in tiny cells without windows for years or sometimes decades based on questionable evidence.

Almost a year after Kevin Spacey was found not guilty of sex crimes, Channel 4 and Max in the U.S. are set to air testimony from more men detailing their experiences with the double-Oscar winner.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The seventh edition of The Changing Face of Europe, a section in Toronto’s Hot Docs Film Festival, explores the cultural, economic and political forces shaping contemporary Europe. From an investigation of a right-wing group in Fabien Greenberg and Bård Kjøge Rønning’s “Norwegian Democrazy” to the fight for bodily freedom in Elina Psykou’s “Stray Bodies,” this year’s selection broaches a series of urgent — and, at many times, highly-sensitive — sociopolitical topics at the forefront of European society from filmmakers who may not always get the support they need within the international festival landscape.

Thania Garcia Música Mexicana artist Carin León has announced his international “Boca Chueca Tour,” slated for this fall. León will kickoff the trek later this year after making debut appearances at both Coachella and Stagecoach. The “Boca Chueca Tour” will hit major cities across North America and Europe, including a night at Madison Square Garden in New York City, two nights at the United Center in Chicago, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto, and BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Cinephil has sold Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó’s feature documentary “Agent of Happiness” to a wide range of key international territories ahead of the film’s Hot Docs debut this weekend. Deals are confirmed in the U.K.

Addie Morfoot Contributor The 31st edition of Canada’s influential Hot Docs Film Festival, which gets underway Thursday, could very well be the last. For the past month, the Toronto festival, one of North America’s largest dedicated to documentaries, has been roiled by staff and funding turmoil. On March 25, artistic director Hussain Currimbhoy and 10 of the fest’s programmers abruptly exited their posts.

Alison Hammond has sparked a backlash after sharing snaps of her romantic wildlife park retreat with her younger beau, David Puttman.

The brothers who co-founded fashion giant PrettyLittleThing have announced they are teaming up on a new business venture together.