Shane Smith - S 2015
George PimentalFormer Toronto Film Festival programmer Shane Smith is moving uptown to the Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival as its new director of programming.
Smith, most recently director of special projects at TIFF, will bring his programming eye to North America’s largest documentary festival, starting in October. Hot Docs also promoted current programming manager Sarafina DiFelice to the newly created position of associate director of programming.
Besides its own world premieres, Hot Docs annually programs films that debuted at Sundance, Tribeca and SXSW. The 2015 edition kicked off with the documentary Tig, about Los Angeles comic and cancer survivor Tig Notaro, after Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York‘s film debuted in competition in Sundance.
Hot Docs executive director Brett Hendrie in a statement said Smith’s “eye for great docs will help ensure that Hot Docs continues to bring the most outspoken and outstanding films to the festival every year.”
