“We’re Looking for Passionate People Who We Think Will Put in the Work and Deliver”: Dorota Lech on the 20-year-old Hot Docs Forum

As a film journo who usually prefers celebrating the fruits of cinematic labor over covering the messy business of making the product I’m often a bit squeamish when it comes to observing pitch sessions (in no small part due to the glaring abundance of older white faces dangling the purse strings). Fortunately, the folks behind the two-decade-old Hot Docs Forum, which utilizes the appropriately Harry Potter-esque, neo-Gothic Hart House student center at the University of Toronto, do an expert job of combining industry necessity with collegial fun.

This is perhaps best evidenced by the Forum’s Cuban Hat Award, a prize decided by audience ballot and funded by literally passing around a Cuban hat as collection plate during the proceedings. And this year’s eclectic take, which went to Bo McGuire and producer Tatiana Bears for their intriguingly titled Socks on Fire: Uncle John and the Copper Headed Water Rattlers, included over $2,000 in six currencies along with various production services. And that’s in addition to a homestay in Copenhagen to office space in Greece to two Toronto Raptors “We The North” t-shirts — they’d made the NBA playoffs after all — and a tin of ginger mints. (No ginger mints went to the projects Midwives, Colour of the Wind or Twice Colonized, though they did ultimately receive Canadian dollar prize winnings totaling $30,000, $20,000 and $30,000, respectively.)

So to get a better understanding of how this transformation of high-stakes shark tank into supportive team spirit came about, Filmmaker turned to the nomadic (Poland-born but Toronto and LA-based) head of the Forum, Dorota Lech, who also leads the Toronto International Film Festival’s Discovery section.