According to indieWIRE the audience at Hot Docs jumped 42% from 2008 to 2009 and had record breaking numbers this year (122,000). This is fantastic news for a festival with such a superb line-up of documentaries. The top 10 audience votes reflect just a tiny percent (and range) of the films screened:

1. The Cove (D: Louie Psihoyos; USA)
2. 65_RedRoses (D: Philip Lyall, Nimisha Mukerji; Canada)
3. Inside Hana’s Suitcase (D: Larry Weinstein; Canada, Czech Republic)
4. Best Worst Movie (D: Michael Paul Stephenson; USA)
5. A Hard Name (D: Alan Zweig; Canada)
6. Over The Hills and Far Away (D: Michel Orion Scott; USA)
7. Winnebago Man (D: Ben Steinbauer; USA)
8. Burma VJ (D: Anders Hogsbro Ostergaard; Denmark)
9. Rough Aunties (D: Kim Longinotto; UK)
10. Prom Night In Mississippi (D: Paul Saltzman; Canada)

The jury winners are here. Embarrassingly I hadn’t seen many of the jury winners but I’m very glad that Chung-ryoul Lee won the HBO Documentary Films Emerging Artist Award for Old Partner, one of my favorite films of the fest and one I had been longing to see ever since I heard people singing its praises at Sundance. The film I have been absolutely obsessed with is Renzo Martens’ Episode 3 – Enjoy Poverty. I’m waiting for Hot Docs to post video of the Q&A Martens gave after the first screening and I’m formulating a longer post about making documentaries about Africa and the politics of impact and aid. To this end I’ll be attending the Envision event on Thursday at the DGA in NYC to watch Rough Aunties and Pray the Devil Back to Hell. We’ll see how the panel Seeing Africa Through African Eyes tackles the issue!

I had a chance to attend the first North American Good Pitch at the TDF at Hot Docs – many of the issues around social change and documentaries came up during this event too so more thoughts on this to come shortly as well. The next Good Pitch will be at SILVERDOCS in June by the way – you can see the 8 projects selected on the BRITDOC website.

For now here are some photos documenting various Hot Docs hi-jinks.

Jess Search and Katie Bradford from BRITDOC (over from London to run the Good Pitch) talking to SXSW’s Janet Pierson at the British party hosted by Sheffield Doc/Fest and BRITDOC. The party took place the night I arrived and in true British style much booze was consumed!

Judith Helfand (Working Films, Chicken & Egg, filmmaker – this woman wears many amazing hats!) with Julie Goldman from Cactus Three.

Danielle DiGiacomo (indiePix), Yung Chang (director of the brilliant Up the Yangtze who had a short called Ali Shan at Hot Docs this year), Pamela Cohn (if you’re into docs and you don’t read her blog Still in Motion you’re a fool!) – this photo was taken at the hilarious Winnebago Man party. We got moved from the original hotel room where we were being a bit loud and ended up in a conference room in the wee hours.

Judith Helfand, Mark Atkin (SBS, Australia) and Joel Heller (one of the producers behind Winnebago Man which is definitely becoming a must-see doc this year. It’s a great film, full of complexity and warmth which you may not expect if you’ve only seen the original viral video.)

We took over the blackboard in the conference room and added some of our own 1AM thoughts to the corporate nonsense that was already on there. “ARTISINAL CHEESE” is my contribution in case you’re wondering.

I’ve just been watching Dominic DeJoseph’s wonderful film, Johnny Berlin, and I’m looking forward to seeing the sequel, Johnny Berlin 2, tonight at the Anthology Film Archives where it is screening as part of the fantastic Flaherty NYC monthly series.  Jon Hyrns (aka Johnny Berlin), the subject of both films (and the star of Alex Karposky’s Woodpecker), tells sad, hilarious, wonderful stories about his life. The films are essentially monologues but don’t let this put you off because Jon sees and talks about the world and his place in it in a way that will keep you absolutely rapt throughout – he is one of those people who looks at life sideways (and backwards and upside down). He sees the humor and the sadness, but also the utter ridiculousness. One of my favorite scenes in Johnny Berlin 2 involves Jon exploring the notion of crazy wisdom with a water pistol. Come discover some of your own crazy wisdom at Anthology tonight – 7.30pm. I’ll be hosting a discusssion with Dominic DeJoseph after the screening.

This is currently up on Shooting People:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, NASA released details of all the films held on the International Space Station. At Shooting People, we feel that Bachelor Party, Cheaper by the Dozen and Forest Gump don’t provide sufficient brain nourishment for the astronauts.

Your mission Shooters is to provide us with your suggestions. Which films do you think belong amongst the stars? Would you like to see Man on Wire replace Man on Fire? Earth’s survival rests in your hands.

So what do I go and choose? The Goonies! It’s a good thing earth’s survival doesn’t rest in MY hands.

There is something about people singing all over the world that just makes me happy (Where the Hell is Matt did a similar thing with dancing). The video below is from a multimedia project called Playing for Change.

From the website:

The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world.

I feel a little too cynical to be able to fully embrace this idea but I like it despite myself. There is something magical about music after all.

I have just segued from Tribeca to Hot Docs and plan to post reports on both festivals very soon. Work is kicking my butt right now so apologies for my slack blogging.