$246,000 handed out to Canadian documentary makers

Nine Canadian projects have been chosen to receive $246,000 in grants and loans from a new fund created by Toronto's Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and Canwest.

The fund, created with a pot of $3 million for film completion and $1 million for development, is geared toward getting Canadian documentary features onto commercial screens.

Among the filmmakers who will get money is Yung Chang, the Montrealer who created the multiple award-winner Up the Yangtze. Chang is going to revisit the heroes of Tiananmen Square in time for the 20th anniversary of the massacre.

Five grants totalling $186,000 were awarded to complete  the following projects:

• Harmless, directed by Alan Zweig, which asks older men and women to reflect on their experience with prison and whether it has changed them.
• Land, directed by Julian Pinder, about the battle over land in Nicaragua.
• Manners Maketh Men, directed by Sarah Goodman, which follows a group of teenage boys at an elite private boys' school during the course of more than a year as they try to figure out what it means to be a man.
• The Man Who Saved Geometry, directed by Daniel New, about the thinking of Donald Coxeter, a geometry professor at University of Toronto.
• Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, directed by Omar Majeed, about three unlikely rebels who thought up a new subculture called Taqwacore that is attracting young Muslim misfits.

Four no-interest loans totalling $60,000 were awarded to develop the following projects:

• Edges Of Love, directed by Maureen Judge , reflections on love and romance from five couples whose relationships have reached the proverbial "seven year itch."
• Pedophile? directed by Barbara Shearer, a documentary about child pornography from the perspectives of those who indulge, and those who oppose it.
• Tiananmen Square 20 Years Later, directed by Yung Chang and Shui-bo Wang, a feature documentary on the stories of the student leaders who escaped abroad after the crackdown in 1989.
• When I Walk, directed by Jason DaSilva, recounts his personal experience with progressive multiple sclerosis.

This is the second round of grants from the fund.