Episode 031: Dorota Lech, Lead Programmer at TIFF

So the next six episodes including this one were all recorded at the Toronto International Film Festival!

For the first episode of Best Girl Grip goes to TIFF, I spoke to Dorota Lech, a Polish-born and Toronto-based film programmer who became the Lead Programmer of the Discovery section this year. She has worked for TIFF since 2013, and also produces the Hot Docs Forum, a pitching event aimed at garnering financing for international documentaries, at Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival. Dorota previously held positions at the National Film Board of Canada and Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. 

This year the Discovery programme for TIFF had 37 films from emerging filmmakers who represent 35 countries and 54% of the films selected were directed by women. I spoke to Dorota about how she discovered programming herself, what the selection process looks like, how you market emerging filmmakers in a very busy festival line-up and what her proudest programming moment has been.