Hot Docs Forum Winners Hope Prizes Will Propel Projects Into Distribution

Two films expected to be in the awards hunt as the year progresses will screen in tandem at a special one-night only film festival in Tulsa, OK.

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events.

EXCLUSIVE: Vue founder and CEO Tim Richards caused a stir last month with an intriguing appearance in front of the UK Parliament’s British Film & High-End TV Inquiry. 

Will Mellor discussed the notorious Strictly curse for the first time ever during a candid conversation with co-host Ralf Little on their popular show Two Pints With Will and Ralf. The duo treated fans to an engaging back-and-forth at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall.The chat kicked off with Ralf teasing his friend: "I believe there's a thing called the curse of Strictly.

Breitbart News argued the performance “should still be drawing big crowds during Broadway’s peak season – the month before the Tony Awards,” which is right now.The play first opened on Broadway last month, following an Off-Broadway run that started in 2022 in New York City’s “The Public” theater. The musical was by singer-songwriter Shaina Taub, directed by Leigh Silverman, and produced by lead producers Jill Furman and Rachel Sussman, along with co-producers Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai.Breitbart also noted that Vice President Harris’s niece, Meena Harris, is another producer on the stage play.The three-hour-long play brings the women’s suffrage movement of the early 1900s to the stage.

Sheffield DocFest, the U.K.’s premiere nonfiction film festival, today revealed the full lineup for its 31st edition running June 12-17. Among the highlights: the world premiere of Tilda Swinton’s feature directorial debut, The Hexagonal Hive and a Mouse in a Maze, co-directed by Bartek Dziadosz.

Michaela Zee Tom Selleck isn’t ready to bid farewell to “Blue Bloods” yet. In an interview with CBS News, Selleck said he still believes that “CBS will come to their senses” and reverse its decision to end the police procedural with Season 14. “We’re the third-highest scripted show in all of broadcast.

Tom Selleck hopes CBS reverses its decision to cancel Blue Bloods and that viewers will be able to continue watching the series beyond its 14 seasons.

Pop singer Mike Nolan, who soared to fame after winning Eurovision - which returns later this month - for the UK in the band Bucks Fizz, has announced that he is stepping down from the group after 43 years. The band have been continuing to perform under their new name, The Fizz, with original members Mike, Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston over recent years. However, appearing on Michael Ball’s Radio 2 show this week, they made the sad announcement.

Addie Morfoot Contributor During a Distribution Advocates podcast recording at Hot Docs, producer/director Amy Hobby announced a new documentary $200,000 grant called The Marketing Innovations Fund, which will go to independent distributors. Hobby co-founded Distribution Advocates in 2020 alongside Abby Sun, Avril Speaks, Carlos Gutierrez and Karin Chien.

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.

Alex Ritman Kevin Spacey has gone on the attack against an upcoming docuseries about him that is due to air next week. The two-part “Spacey Unmasked,” which Variety revealed would broadcast in the U.K.

Cobra Kai is coming back one last time!

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.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: Following her breakout role as Shin Hati in the hit Star Wars series Ahsoka, Ivanna Sakhno has found her next big role. Sources tell Deadline she has landed a major part in M3GAN 2.0, a sequel to the hit film from Atomic Monster and Blumhouse in association with Divide/Conquer. She joins a cast that includes Allison Williams and Violet McGraw.

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.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Hot Docs is to honor Canadian writer-producer-director Alison Duke with the Don Haig Award, which recognizes “creative vision and entrepreneurship,” as reflected in her work, as well as a track record of mentoring emerging Canadian filmmakers. The award is presented to a Canadian independent producer with a feature-length film at the festival, with the recipient being selected by a jury of filmmakers.

Kamasi Washington has enlisted funk icon George Clinton and rapper D Smoke for a new track, ‘Get Lit’.The suave new track is taken from his forthcoming album ‘Fearless Movement’, which will land on Friday (May 3).It follows previous singles ‘Prologue’, ‘Dream State’ (featuring André 3000) and ‘The Garden Path’, which Washington performed for the first time ever in 2022 while making his late-night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.Check out ‘Get Lit’ below:Speaking about his forthcoming seventh album in a press release, Washington has referred to ‘Fearless Movement’ as his dance album. “It’s not literal.