Alanis Obomsawin, is an Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has written and directed many National Film Board of Canada documentaries on First Nations issues. Obomsawin is a member of Film Fatales independent women filmmakers.
The Prix Iris is a Canadian film award, presented annually by Québec Cinéma, which recognizes talent and achievement in the mainly francophone feature film industry in Quebec. Until 2016, it was known as the Jutra Award in memory of influential Quebec film director Claude Jutra, but Jutra's name was withdrawn from the awards following the publication of Yves Lever's biography of Jutra, which alleged that he had sexually abused children.
The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June 2020. In addition to the annual festival, Hot Docs owns and operates the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, administers multiple production funds, and runs year-round screening programs including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.
Nisha Pahuja is an Indian-born Canadian filmmaker, based in Toronto, Ontario.
Resurrecting Hassan is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Carlo Guillermo Proto and released in 2016. The documentary centres on the Hartings, a family of blind musicians in Montreal who supported themselves by busking in the Guy-Concordia station of the Montreal Metro.
Manic is a 2017 Canadian documentary film directed by Kalina Bertin. The film depicts Bertin's efforts, in response to a family history of bipolar disorder, to investigate parts of her father's prior life in Montserrat that she did not know about; she ultimately uncovers the revelations that her father was a cult leader who also suffered from bipolar disorder, and who had, unbeknownst to Bertin until making the film, also fathered at least 12 other children with four other women.
Anote's Ark is a 2018 Canadian documentary film directed by Matthieu Rytz. Profiling the impact of climate change on the island nation of Kiribati, which will be one of the first nations on earth to entirely disappear underwater in the event of a sustained sea level rise, the film tells the stories of the nation's former president Anote Tong, who intensely lobbied the international community to take action on the threat, and of Sermary Tiare, an I-Kiribati woman who decides to protect her family by emigrating to New Zealand.
Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian film director, writer and editor. Hayes is known for being the co-director, co-writer and the editor of the documentary Reel Injun, which was awarded a Gemini Award in 2010 for Best Direction in a Documentary Program. In 2011, Reel Injun won a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media. Hayes was the co-editor of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which was awarded a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary in 2018..
A Woman, My Mother is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Claude Demers and released in 2019. The film documents Demers's efforts to learn more about his birth mother, who gave him up for adoption but later died before Demers ever had the opportunity to meet her as an adult, leaving him with many gaps in his understanding that he could fill in only with imaginative speculation.
Prayer for a Lost Mitten is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jean-François Lesage and released in 2020. The film centres on the lost and found office of the Montreal Metro system.
In the Shadow of the Pines is a Canadian animated short documentary film, directed by Anne Koizumi and released in 2020. An exploration of her grief around the death of her father in the early 2010s, the film centres on an imagined conversation with him about her childhood shame that he was employed as the janitor at her school, thus exposing her to her classmates as the daughter of a working class immigrant.
Bobbi Jo Hart is an American-Canadian documentary filmmaker based in Montreal, Quebec. Hart was born in California and raised in Cottage Grove, Oregon. She is most noted for her films Rebels on Pointe, which won the award for Best Canadian Feature at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in 2017 and received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Biography or Arts Documentary Program or Series at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019, and Fanny: The Right to Rock, which won the Rogers Audience Award at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and the award for Best Canadian Film at Inside Out in 2021.
Geographies of Solitude is a Canadian documentary film by Jacquelyn Mills that was released in 2022. The film is guided by Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who lives on Nova Scotia's Sable Island, where she catalogues the island's wild Sable Island horses, and endeavours to preserve its unique ecosystem.
Rojek is a 2022 Canadian documentary film written, directed and produced by Zaynê Akyol. It is about the recovery of Kurdistan from the Rojava–Islamist conflict with a special emphasis on interviews with imprisoned former members of the Islamic State about their motivations. It was selected as the Canadian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.
Perfecting the Art of Longing is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Kitra Cahana and released in 2021. The film is a portrait of Cahana's father Ronnie, a former rabbi who has been living in long-term care since suffering a stroke which left him quadriplegic and unable to speak, and the family's efforts to stay connected to him remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.
Dear Audrey is a 2021 documentary film directed by Jeremiah Hayes. The film centres on activist and filmmaker Martin Duckworth, as he cares for his wife Audrey Schirmer through the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Belle River is a 2022 Canadian short documentary film directed by Guillaume Fournier, Samuel Matteau and Yannick Nolin. The third film in a trilogy about Cajun culture in Louisiana following the films Let the Good Times Roll in 2017 and Acadiana in 2019, the film profiles the residents of Pierre Part as they cope with the threat of their community being flooded by the possible but ultimately averted opening of the Morganza Spillway during the Mississippi River floods of 2019.
The Benevolents is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Sarah Baril Gaudet and released in 2021. An exploration of contemporary loneliness and the importance of human social connection, the film is a portrait of various people who are training to become volunteers for Tel-Aide, a crisis hotline in Montreal, Quebec.
Noura Kevorkian is a documentary filmmaker. She has won numerous awards including a 2023 Peabody Award for her 2022 film Batata, which is submitted for consideration to the 2024 Oscars in the Documentary Feature Category.
I Lost My Mom is a 2022 Canadian documentary film, directed by Denys Desjardins. The film documents the experiences of Desjardins and his sister Maryse as they navigate the process of trying to get their mother Madeleine Ducharme, who suffered from advancing Alzheimer's disease, placed in a CHSLD, and then trying to stay involved in her care as she contracted COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic when harsh safety restrictions were being imposed. It is a sequel to his 2020 film The Castle , which profiled Madeleine as she initially confronted the prospect of having to move from her longtime home in a seniors' retirement complex to a more managed care setting.
