Hussain Currimbhoy, the artistic director of Canadian documentary festival Hot Docs, departed on March 20 for “personal reasons”, according to the festival.
In a statement, organisers said Currimbhoy was “fundamental in programming this year’s festival”, adding, “Festival Director Heather Haynes will lead the programming department in preparations for this year’s festival” – which runs April 25-May 5.
The line-up is scheduled to be announced later today (March 26).
The festival also addressed the shock exits of 10 members of the programming team, saying ““regrettably, some members of the programming team have decided not to participate in this year’s Festival. We thank them for their contributions”.
Yesterday, Samah Ali, Vivian Belik, Jesse Cumming, Angie Driscoll, Margaret Pereira, Gabor Pertic, Kaitlynn Tomaselli, Myrocia Watamaniuk, Mariam Zaidi, and Yiqian Zhang announced they were leaving in coordinated social media posts.
Currimbhoy joined Hot Docs last November to lead the festival programming team, as well as Toronto’s Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, and educational initiative Docs for Schools.
He had previously served as a programmer at Sundance, Sheffield DocFest, Melbourne Film Festival, and the Red Sea Film Festival, among others, and launched Gåsebäck Film Festival in Sweden last year. The Canadian was a co-executive producer on the Taliban documentary and 2023 Venice premiere Hollywoodgate.
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