Hot Docs co-founder Debbie Nightingale has passed away at age 71. She died on Thursday, July 10, following a recurrence of cancer. A veteran member of the Canadian documentary scene and representatives from Hot Docs confirmed her passing.
Nightingale co-founded Hot Docs documentary festival with Paul Jay in 1993. Jay hired her to work on spec as she served as Hot Docs’ first festival manager. She is credited with getting the event off the ground by raising key funds, getting the word out locally and internationally, and encouraging submissions.
“It was because of her involvement, on spec, that the festival flew,” Jay told POV in a 2007 interview. “Without Debbie, there wouldn’t be a Hot Docs.”
Prior to that, Nightingale managed the industry centre at the Toronto International Film Festival, then the Festival of Festivals. She worked both festivals while running Hot Docs out of her office, home basement, and, for a while, the offices of the Canadian Academy of Cinema and Television. Hot Docs quickly grew to a world class event, at one point becoming the largest documentary festival in North America.
“Our festival was a great place for documentary filmmakers to meet people from other countries and find out what resources are out there. There’s a process in which filmmakers piece things together for our market and abroad–and how wonderful is that?” Nightingale told POV’s Marc Glassman in 2023.
“I just had a sense that documentary was a motherhood apple pie thing in Canada, in the sense that there’s a lot of passion around documentaries. People recognize Canadians as great documentary filmmakers,” she said. “I had a feeling that we would be able to raise money to create a celebration of documentary film. I won’t say that it was easy, but it wasn’t terrifically difficult to raise that money. We raised $100,000 in the first year, which is pretty good for a first year. The main thing was getting the festival off the ground.”
Nightingale also served as an executive producer on films and series. Most recently, she executive produced the documentary Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story (2013) and the comedy series Living in Your Car (2010). The latter earned her a Gemini nomination.
In 2007, Nightingale and her partner Shain Jaffe left left Toronto and moved to Campbellford, and then outside of Port Hope, where she established the beloved farm and tourist attraction Haute Goat. The farm continues to delight crowds with its Nigerian dwarf goats, alpacas, and Icelandic horses, and is famed for its “shmurgle,” described as a purposefully chaotic interaction with the goats that combines cuddling and walking.
“I moved to the farm full-time to care for my new herd,” Nightingale wrote in Toronto Life in 2016. “My days changed dramatically: I was waking up at 5:30 a.m. to answer emails and deal with business for my day job. By 8, I was in the barn feeding the goats. Sometimes I was roused in the middle of the night by a runaway horse or a sick doe. The workload was double what I’d had back at home—and I was loving every minute of it.”
Nightingale is survived by Jaffe, along with her three children, two step children, and countless furbabies.
POV has reached out to Hot Docs for comment.
