Hot Docs at HotDocs: 5 Documentary Directors Participate in Exclusive Panel on Westdoc Online

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Westdoc Online, an internet broadcast series dedicated to documentary and nonfiction filmmaking, has just published an exclusive video interview with five directors screening new films at the 2018 HotDocs International Documentary Festival, the largest documentary film festival in North America: Paul Damien Williams (Gurrumul), Hao Wu (People's Republic of Desire), Michael Del Monte (Transformer), Jean-Simon Chartier (Playing Hard), and Luciana Kaplan (Rush Hour). The episode also features exclusive sneak peeks at some of the best and most exciting films screening at HotDocs 2018 later this month.

Episodes of Westdoc Online are available free on www.westdoconline.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Apple TV and Roku (via the Boxcast Channel). Episodes are published every other Wednesday at 9:30am Pacific time.

Director/Producer/Editor Paul Williams has been working in the film industry since 1997, first as a freelance film and video editor and then as a producer and director at his own company, Sutton Grange Films. GURRUMUL is a portrait of the blind indigenous artist Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, one of Australia's most celebrated and important musical voices.

Originally trained as a molecular biologist, Hao Wu was an Internet executive before focusing on filmmaking and writing. His documentary films have received funding support from The Ford Foundation JustFilms, Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Institute, and international broadcasters. Wu is a fellow at the New America Foundation. His writing on China has appeared on Time.com, Slate.com, Marketplace Radio, Strait Times, and China Daily.

Michael Del Monte is an award winning director, working around the globe. His latest documentary Transformer (2018) follows former U.S. Marine and world-record powerlifter, Matt Kroc, as he sets out to become a woman. Transformer premiered at the Austin Film Festival and won the Best Documentary and the Audience Award.

Jean-Simon began his career in advertising. After having traveled as a wannabe journalist through Latin America and Southeast Asia, he decided to pursue his love of documentary filmmaking, founding MC2 Communication Media. Over the past few years, Jean-Simon has produced documentaries in partnership with several broadcasters in Canada and abroad, as well as many wide-reaching collaborative web projects. Several award-winning documentaries produced by MC2 have been released in cinemas and featured in festivals such as IDFA, Hot Docs, DOK.fest, RIDM.

Luciana Kaplan has directed several documentaries, three of which have obtained promotion and co-investment support from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts. In 2010, she won the call for Opera Prima of the Cinematographic Training Center with the project The Revolution of the Alcatraces . She worked from 2007 to 2013 as director of the Grant Gucci / Ambulante and Cuauht moc Moctezuma Ambulante for documentary post-production.

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About Westdoc Online

Founded in 2009, the original Westdoc Conference was an annual, three day get together in Hollywood, hailed as the go-to conference for the Documentary and Reality communities. It offered unparalleled access to senior network executives, program buyers and top production companies and had an exciting all day PitchFest. Filmmakers came from around the world. Westdoc Online takes some of the best elements of the original conference and brings them to viewers free with an international online live internet broadcast - no travel, no TSA, no hotel, and no conference pass needed. Through the use of livestreaming and video conferencing technology, Westdoc Online presents a series of conversations with the most compelling producers, directors, executive and network programmers, commissioning editors, festival directors, and techies from around the world. Westdoc Online airs every other Wednesday at 9:30am Pacific time. For more information about past and future episodes, visit www.westdoconline.com.

Copyright 2018 Westdoc Online, All rights reserved.

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