TORONTO – The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and Netflix announced today the Hot Docs Canadian Storytellers Project, a new five-year program which will provide core funding and professional development for Canadian filmmakers.
“In recognition of the systemic barriers that continue to exist within the documentary film industry, the Project will serve filmmakers from groups whose stories have been historically underrepresented on screen,” reads the press release. These groups include Indigenous, Francophone, Deaf and/or have a disability, or who are persons of colour. The announcement came at the start of Hot Docs’ industry conference taking place now until May 6.
Central to this is the establishment of the CrossCurrents Canada Doc Fund, which is funded by Netflix, which will financially support 25-40 independent documentary projects from emerging filmmakers over the next five years with grants ranging from C$10,000-$50,000 CDN. Both short and feature-length projects will be supported with development, production or post-production funding.
Hot Docs designed the Project with “extensive and ongoing consultations with a diverse group of arts and culture organizations and individual artists across Canada,” reads the release.
The Project will also support ten fellowships annually for Hot Docs’ Doc Accelerator program for emerging filmmakers. Further educational opportunities will be provided through Hot Docs’ Doc Ignite labs, which provide emerging and established filmmakers professional development curriculums on such topics as audience engagement, marketing and distribution. The Hot Docs Canadian Storytellers Project will provide no-cost Doc Ignite labs in multiple communities across Canada each year.
