Hot Docs, North America’s Largest Documentary Festival, Unveils 19 Forum Projects

Brooke Shields is sharing her pride in daughters Rowan Henchy, 19, and Grier Henchy, 16, for their appearance at the end of the new documentary about her life, “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields.

Peter Caranicas Deputy Editor Filmmakers Robert Rippberger and Devin Keaton have teamed with industrial contractor Nathan Edwards to break ground for Ascent Studios in North Carolina. The facility will be located on 200 acres in Spring Hope, a short drive from Raleigh, and will include five production stages totaling 170,000 square feet, making it the largest film studio in the state upon completion in late 2023. Productions that utilize Ascent Studios will receive a 25% tax rebate on qualifying expenses and purchases funded by the North Carolina Film and Entertainment Grant. In addition to offering interior space and new technology for every kind of production, Ascent will sit on a landscape that provides picturesque exteriors of fields, forests and lakes.

Sophia Scorziello editor The Award-winning PBS documentary series “Independent Lens” has released its spring slate of documentary films, which will begin debuting on April 24. This season’s films will highlight a myriad of marginalized communities and current affairs by documenting both personal and important stories from around the world.   First to debut is documentary film “Free Chol Soo Lee” from filmmakers Julie Ha and Eugene Yi. The Sundance favorite uses archival material to travel back to 1970’s San Francisco and tell the story of Chol Soo Lee, a Korean immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder, and the Asian American activist movement that sought to free him.  

Rina Sawayama has announced an upcoming North American tour kicking off this June.The ‘This Hell’ singer took to social media on Tuesday (March 28), confirming that the Hold The Girl Reloaded tour will see her perform 12 shows between June 9 and October 9. The run will include festival sets as well as headlining concerts.Check out the complete list of tour dates below.A post shared by Rina Sawayama (@rinasonline)Pre-sale tickets will go sale today (March 29) at 10am local time, while general tickets go on sale on Friday (March 31) at 10am local time.

Pixies, Modest Mouse and Cat Power have announced a joint tour of North America – see all the dates below and buy tickets here.The three bands will hit the road in August and September, and they come in addition to upcoming May dates for Pixies in support of their new album ‘Doggerel’.The tour begins in Asbury Park, New Jersey on August 20, running for the following month before finishing up in San Diego, California on September 16.See the full list of tour dates below. Tickets are on sale on Friday, March 31 at 10am local time.

Back to the Future: The Musical will launch a North American tour in the summer of 2024, producers announced today.

Lise Pedersen Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has unveiled the lineup of its 54th edition, which features a broad panorama of both established names and newcomers from around the world. The festival kicks off on April 21 with the world premiere of “Nightwatchers” by Juliette de Marcillac and runs through April 30. The event will screen a total of 163 films from 46 countries, with a 50-50 parity between female and male directors. No fewer than 12 out of 14 films in the main International Competition and 13 out of 15 in the Burning Lights section, the festival sidebar dedicated to new documentary expression, are world premieres, bearing testimony to the fest’s reputation for setting the trend on the global doc scene.

EXCLUSIVE: Viva Kids has nabbed North American rights to the animated family film Rally Road Racers (formerly Silk Road Rally), featuring the voices of Jimmy O. Yang (Patriots Day), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Chloe Bennet (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and more, slating it for a nationwide theatrical release on 1,500 or more screens on May 12.

CPH:DOX, the international nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen, isn’t shy about stating its ambitions.

Cinderella and Prince Charming lived happily ever after and Descendants: The Rise of Red will showcase what the fairytale couple is up to now.

Naman Ramachandran New York-based film and TV studio and streaming network FilmRise has acquired North American distribution rights to true-crime documentary feature film “The Thief Collector.” Directed by Emmy winner Allison Otto (“The Love Bugs”), the film follows one of the most audacious and puzzling art thefts of a generation. In 1985, Willem de Kooning’s seminal work, “Woman-Ochre,” was sliced from its frame and stolen off the walls of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, disappearing into the desert. Over 30 years later, in a remote town in New Mexico, the $160 million dollar painting was rediscovered in the unlikeliest of places – the home of an eccentric married couple, both schoolteachers, with a keen eye for great works but a very unconventional method of collecting them. The film features Glenn Howerton co-creator, director, writer and star of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Fremantle’s Documentaries division has launched Undeniable, a label dedicated to producing premium feature documentaries and series, in partnership with high-profile talent and international commissioners, Mandy Chang, Fremantle’s global head of documentaries, revealed Tuesday at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. The label is already developing several international projects and partnerships with high-profile filmmakers, including Amy Berg (“Deliver Us From Evil,” “Phoenix Rising”), Chris Smith (“Tiger King,” “Bad Vegan”), and Penny Lane and Gabriel Sedgwick (“Hail Satan?,” “Listening to Kenny G”). Chang said: “The launch of Undeniable further underlines our commitment and ambition to build Fremantle’s documentary output on the premium side. Working with the very best filmmakers and emerging talent, the label will provide editorial and production expertise and support in multiple genres. Importantly, it will provide a platform and freedom for creative talent to unlock and explore important issues and stories to be told.”

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Toronto’s Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, has added 12 films to its Special Presentations program. The first tranche of titles was announced March 14. The festival runs April 27 to May 7. World premieres include Canadian journalist Michelle Shephard’s “The Man Who Stole Einstein’s Brain,” the uncovering of the story behind the pathologist who stole the genius’ brain in 1955; “The Rise of Wagner,” a chilling exposé on the collusion between Wagner Group mercenaries and the Kremlin, which has resulted in secret killings and countless human rights violations; “We Are Guardians,” the story of the Indigenous guardians of the Brazilian Amazon, struggling to protect their territories from the ravages of extractive industries, deforestation, corrupt politicians and profit hungry global corporations; “Who’s Afraid of Nathan Law?,” a chronicle of dissident Hong Kong politician and activist Nathan Law’s fight for democracy; and director Barry Avrich’s “Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella,” a portrait of Canada’s first Jewish Supreme Court judge, a passionate advocate for the disabled community and visible minorities.

According to MC Entertainment, Tickets for the Puerto Rico stop of E’LAST’s North America tour will start this Wednesday (March 22) with tickets going for US$35 to US$169.Meanwhile, more details regarding the rest of the shows on the ‘Thrill’ tour are set to be released later today.

Although Filmart felt quiet on its first morning, with many attendees glued to their phones watching the Oscars, it soon turned into a reasonably vibrant market, with sales companies locked in back-to-back meetings, new project announcements and a few star appearances to liven up proceedings. 

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Sales agency Taskovski Films has acquired “!Aitsa” and “Fighters,” which both have premieres at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen Intl. Documentary Film Festival. Dane Dodds’ “!Aitsa” has its world premiere in the festival’s Science Program. The film focuses on the spiritual lives of the inhabitants of South Africa’s Great Karoo desert. This is the place where some of the first humans likely lived. Here, in the Blombos cave, an unearthed piece of engraved ochre represents perhaps the earliest ever example of abstract human thinking. At the other extreme of the Karoo, bordering the Kalahari in the North, the town of Carnarvon is home to one of the biggest science projects in the world, the so-called Square Kilometer Array. Still under construction, the SKA will consist of hundreds of satellite dishes the size of three-story buildings. Its stated objectives are to explore dark matter, dark energy and the beginning of the universe, and search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

EXCLUSIVE: Cinema Guild has acquired North American rights for Belgian director Bas Devos’s film Here which won best film in the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters section last month as well as the Fipresci prize.

Christopher Vourlias The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival wrapped its 25th edition with a muted closing night on Sunday, with festival organizers scrapping an official award ceremony as Greece continues to mourn the loss of 57 lives in a deadly rail accident on Feb. 28. The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day. Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”

Thania Garcia The Cure is hitting the road for a North American trek that includes three dates each at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl and New York’s Madison Square Garden. This will be the first time the band plays any North American shows since their 2019 festival appearances and their first tour in the region since 2016. Following a slate of 2022 European concerts, the Cure’s “Shows of a Lost World” tour will kick on May 10 in New Orleans and hit 30 stops across the U.S. and some parts of Canada with a closing show on July 1 in Miami. The Cure will be supported by Scottish post-punk band the Twilight Sad at all shows. See the full lineup below.

Tara Karajica Egyptian director Alaa Dajani’s “The Native Dance,” a documentary that tells the story of Younis Abdallah and his comrades who were among the 300,000 peasants conscripted into the Egyptian Labor Corps in 1917, many of whom were dispatched to Europe to dig trenches for allied defense in World War I, took the top prize in the Pitching Forum of the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s Agora Docs industry program, which wrapped Wednesday. The awards ceremony concluded a session that saw more than 400 professionals taking part both in-person and online in the Agora activities. In “The Native Dance,” which is produced by Kesmat El Sayed and Laura Kloeckner (SEERA Films), the jury found “a film that promises a compelling visual approach combining archive material and animation, telling the story about the British forcing peasants from Egypt to dig trenches in Europe during WWI,” read the jury’s statement.