Toronto doc fest to fete filmmakers Leacock, Baichwal
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 2:57 PM ET
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British documentarian Richard Leacock and Canadian director Jennifer Baichwal will be among the filmmakers honoured this spring at the 15th annual Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Organizers of the Toronto event announced Tuesday the selection of Leacock for the festival's outstanding achievement award, an honour that also includes the screening of a retrospective of his work at the 11-day event.
In a statement, festival programming chief Sean Farnel hailed Leacock's "essential contribution to the documentary form."
Past recipients of the honour include Werner Herzog, Nick Broomfield and Albert Maysles.
The London-born, Canary Islands-raised Leacock made his first documentary at the age of 14 to show his boarding school mates what life was like on a banana plantation.
Work as a combat photographer during the Second World War led to a career in film and eventual collaborations with Robert Drew (Primary) and D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop!), as well as titles such as A Stravinsky Portrait, Lulu in Berlin and Les Oeufs à la Coque de Richard Leacock.
Leacock founded and served as head of the film department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later in life continued his filmmaking career in France.
Mid-career honour
Hot Docs organizers have selected Montreal-born, Victoria-raised Baichwal as the subject of the festival's Focus On retrospective, which showcases the work of a mid-career Canadian filmmaker.
The award-winning Baichwal's most recent film — the Edward Burtynsky documentary Manufactured Landscapes — won a host of honours, including best documentary at the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's 2007 Genie Awards. Baichwal is in the running for a similar honour at the upcoming Film Independent Spirit Awards in February.
The festival will also present its Doc Mogul Award to Nick Fraser, commissioning editor of BBC-TV doc show Storyville, for his contributions to the documentary industry.
The 15th annual Hot Docs film festival will take place April 17-27, with the awards handed out on April 25.
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