The beleaguered Hot Docs Film Festival says it is closing its flagship Toronto theatre for about three months and laying off staff amid financial difficulties.
Canada’s largest movie pageant says it can temporarily shutter the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema beginning June 12.
An announcement from the pageant says that can lead to momentary layoffs because the group tries to discover a path again to profitability.
“The Festival’s success caps a year of steady post-pandemic rebuilding, with all key metrics for Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema — attendance, box office, membership sales and concessions — far outperforming 2023,” organizers wrote in a launch saying the information.
“Hot Docs is on the right track, but our financial situation remains serious despite these successes.”
Funding, staffing points
The newest iteration of the pageant, its thirty first annual exhibiting, wrapped in early May. And although Hot Docs itself reported the season as “a great success” that boasted close to pre-pandemic attendance and better than anticipated field workplace income, occasions forward of and through the pageant had been something however rosy.
In a dizzying collection of emails and information articles, pageant organizers, notably new president Marie Nelson, warned that the pageant was in jeopardy, and appealed for assist. Then after the Canadian authorities offered $120 million to numerous arts organizations however omitted the documentary pageant, organizers publicly lambasted the choice as “choosing winners and losers in Canada’s cultural landscape.”
But Hot Docs’ tough scenario echoes related ones throughout that cultural panorama. Festivals and Major Events Canada govt director Martin Roy recently told CBC News it prices 30 to 40 per cent extra to prepare festivals now than it did pre-pandemic. As revenues fail to comply with swimsuit, sponsors pull out of under-performing arts occasions and the remaining organizations battle over dwindling federal funds, and quite a few festivals have been pressured to shut their doorways.Â
But for Hot Docs, there are extra than simply cash troubles. Alongside the worrying financial points, two high-profile board members resigned simply days earlier than the pageant started — the newest in an ongoing exodus that introduced down its whole variety of board members from 24 final yr to 13. Â
Just previous to that, 10 workers blamed an “unprofessional and discriminatory environment” for his or her mass resignation. Their departure adopted the arrival, and fast departure, of creative director Hussain Currimbhoy. who stepped down in March.