Hot Docs, Toronto’s premier documentary film festival, kicked off yesterday.  The 2009 slate features 171 films from 39 countries,  and compiling a schedule for the 11-day event may seem like a daunting task. But B-Side is here to help.  We’ve created an unofficial Festival Genius site, using our automatic schedule optimizer, for this year’s Hot Docs!

Just like the version for South by Southwest in March, Hot Docs’ Festival Genius works the same way. Browse films, watch trailers, view pictures, and read synopses. Select the films you’d like to see, and click “Run Schedule Genius.” The program will search all screenings and optimize your calendar. After it’s run, you may alter your selections until you’ve established your ideal schedule.

Once everything’s set, view your schedule by day, week, or grid, print it off, and export it to iCal or your mobile device.  Did you miss a screening and want to fit it into your schedule? Not a problem! Log back in, add it, and run schedule genius again. It’s that easy.

Many of the documentaries at Hot Docs are generating a lot of buzz. Here are a few that piqued our interest.
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Art & Copy - From Doug Pray, director of Hype! and Scratch, comes his newest documentary about the history and evolution of advertising. From the cave drawings of Lascaux to the billboards of Times Square, humans have always used the public sphere for artistic expression. Pray talks to the noted advertising visionaries behind Apple, Nike, MTV, Tommy Hilfiger, and Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign, to explore how and why some advertisements ascend from the rest to become an inseparable part of popular culture.

El Olvido (Oblivion) - Winner of the Hot Docs Outstanding Achievement Award for her documentary Forever, Heddy Honigmann returns to the festival with El Olvido, an intimate portrait of her birthplace of Lima, Peru. Racked with violence, growing poverty, and political corruption, Peru is a country quickly losing its identity. Honigmann interviews some of the country’s humblest citizens, and contrasts their struggles with the lives of those on the upper crust.

Zombie Girl: The Movie

“In my opinion there’s two types of people: there’s people who like running zombies, and there’s people who don’t.”

Spirit of Slamdance Award winner Zombie Girl, directed by Aaron Marshall, Justin Johnson & Erik Mauck, documents 12-year-old Emily Hagins’s effort to make her feature-length zombie film Pathogen. Seeking the help of her friends, teachers, and parents, Emily must organize numerous shots, props and actors, while fulfilling the the same obligations as her pre-teen classmates. Will she complete the film, or is she in way over her head?

Check out these films and more on the B-Side unofficial Festival Genius site for Hot Docs: http://hotdocs.bside.com/2009

While you’re there, share your voice and help others plan their schedules by rating & reviewing the movies you’ve seen.

Didn’t make it to Hot Docs? Not to worry. B-Side will be hosting Festival Genius sites for 200 festivals in 2009 – there’s bound to be one in your neck of the woods! Coming soon… our picks for Cannes and the unofficial Festival Genius site for France’s most famous fest!