The folks behind the 13th annual Hot Docs are dealing with the kind of problems of which fest organizers dream.

"Our numbers are up," reports executive director Chris McDonald - up to 1,800 industry delegates from 1,700 at least year's event. So far, sales at the public box office are also up.

"Right now we're just trying to manage the growth as best we can. And we want to maintain the intimacy Hot Docs has become famous for on the industry side of things," says McDonald.

Among the expanded industry events is a new program, Doc U, that invites 15 cinema students from colleges and universities to immerse themselves in the festival. Speed networking sessions, for rapid-fire schmoozing, have also been set up, and France, China, Nigeria and Japan are said to be sending larger-than-usual contingents of filmmakers, producers and broadcasters this year.

"We're definitely feeling a lot of pressure," says Michaelle McLean, director of the Toronto Documentary Forum, one of the key industry events at Hot Docs. "This year we have accredited 100 more [TDF] delegates than we did last year, bringing us to over 400. Our ratio of buyers to sellers is three to one. It's extremely important that people feel that they can meet everyone they want to during the festival."

Among the TDFers, Toronto doc trailblazer Allan King (Dying at Grace) will present his new project, The Hood (about a particularly crime-ridden Toronto neighborhood), while Peter Raymont (Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire) will pitch his Shards of Self, about celebrated Chilean-Canadian writer Ariel Dorfman.

Other highlights include a six-film retrospective of special guest Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), and the opening film, Chema Rodriguez's The Railroad All Stars, about a group of Guatemalan sex workers who rally together to form a soccer team.

Montreal-based filmmakers Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal (Discordia) will screen Bombay Calling, a National Film Board production about a call center in Bombay, while Larry Weinstein (Beethoven's Hair) brings Mozartballs, about the oddball fans of a certain Austrian composer.

The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival runs April 28 to May 7 in Toronto.

www.hotdocs.ca