[URBAN NOTE] "Bloor of their own: Hot Docs festival purchases long-time cinematic home"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Simon Houpt reports.

Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival is becoming the master of its own domain, announcing on Thursday morning that a large charitable gift had enabled it to buy the Annex neighbourhood cinema it has long called home.

The $4-million donation from the Rogers Foundation will see the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema renamed the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

The former repertory cinema had been the festival’s on-and-off home base for many years until 2012, when Blue Ice Group, a Toronto-based film and TV production and distribution outfit, purchased, renovated and then leased it to Hot Docs on what were described as generous terms.

At a press conference on Thursday, Hot Docs president Chris McDonald praised Blue Ice co-founder Neil Tabatznik for his stewardship. “Developers had their eyes on this property for years, and Neil saved it from becoming a big-box store,” he said. “The Tabatzniks and the Rogers are the Medicis of the documentary renaissance in Canada.”

In a later interview with The Globe, McDonald explained that the purchase “gives us a permanent home, and further guarantees that this will remain a) a cinema; and b) a documentary cinema long past all of our lives. We are now in control of our fate and our future.”