‘The Bar Keeps Getting Raised’: Hot Docs Programming Head Shane Smith on Mounting a Second Pandemic Edition

When the coronavirus pandemic began sweeping across the globe last year, Canada’s Hot Docs, one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals, was among the first international fests forced to pivot to an online edition. But while the abrupt shift might’ve caught the organizing team off-guard, the result hardly felt like a compromise: along with virtual screenings of more than 200 films, the festival attracted a record number of buyers to its doc market.One year later, audiences and industry players alike have grown accustomed to a virtual festival experience, and Hot Docs is poised to build on the success of last year’s trial by fire. “We’ve done it once, and the bar keeps getting raised,” says programming director Shane Smith. “We’re constantly looking at what other festivals were doing, how they were doing it, how to engage the audience, but also how to engage the industry and the filmmakers,...