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.
Sean Horlor is a Canadian film director, film producer, poet, actor, television producer, columnist and blogger, who co-directs with Steve J. Adams under their production company, Nootka St.
Haida Modern is a 2019 Canadian documentary film about the art and activism of Haida artist Robert Davidson. The film was directed by Charles Wilkinson, filmed, produced and edited by Wilkinson and Tina Schliessler and executive produced by Kevin Eastwood. It premiered at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World is a 2015 Canadian feature documentary film directed by Charles Wilkinson, and produced by Charles Wilkinson, Tina Schliessler, and Kevin Eastwood for the Knowledge Network. The film premiered on April 28, 2015 at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival where it won the award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary.
The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Brett Story and released in 2016. Consisting of twelve short vignettes, the film explores the social impact of the prison–industrial complex in the United States through various angles, including a former industrial town in Kentucky which is now dependent on a federal penitentiary for local employment, a community park which was constructed solely to prevent registered sex offenders from being able to move into the local halfway house, and a man who runs a business selling items to family members of prisoners for inclusion in care packages.
Tasha Hubbard is a Canadian First Nations/Cree filmmaker and educator based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Hubbard's credits include three National Film Board of Canada documentaries exploring Indigenous rights in Canada: Two Worlds Colliding, a 2004 Canada Award-winning short film about the Saskatoon freezing deaths, Birth of a Family, a 2017 feature-length documentary about four siblings separated during Canada's Sixties Scoop, and nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, a 2019 Hot Docs and DOXA Documentary award-winning documentary which examines the death of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man, and the subsequent trial and acquittal of the man who shot him.
nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Tasha Hubbard and released in 2019. The film centres on the 2016 death of Colten Boushie, and depicts his family's struggle to attain justice after the controversial acquittal of Boushie's killer. Narrated by Hubbard, the film also includes a number of animated segments which contextualize the broader history of indigenous peoples of Canada.
Because We Are Girls is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Baljit Sangra and released in 2019. The film centres on Jeeti, Kira and Salakshana Pooni, three Punjabi Canadian sisters from Williams Lake, British Columbia who have gone public in adulthood about allegations of childhood sexual abuse by a cousin who frequently babysat them as children.
This Mountain Life is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Grant Baldwin and released in 2018. The film centres on various residents of the Canadian province of British Columbia and their relationships with the province's mountain landscape, including a mother and daughter undertaking a 2,300 kilometre trek through the Coast Mountains, a married couple who have lived off the grid in the mountains for over 50 years, a pair of avalanche survivors and a group of Roman Catholic nuns living at an isolated nunnery in the Garibaldi Ranges.
After the Last River is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Victoria Lean and released in 2015. The film centres on the humanitarian crisis facing the Attawapiskat First Nation in the early 2010s, culminating in chief Theresa Spence's widely publicized hunger strike.
Stateless is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Michèle Stephenson and released in 2020. The film centres on the crisis of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, many of whom have been left stateless by the Dominican Republic's 2013 decision to strip citizenship from Haitian immigrants and their descendants.
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and released in 2021. The film centres on the opioid crisis, and its effects on Tailfeathers' home Kainai Nation community in Alberta.
Handle With Care: The Legend of the Notic Streetball Crew is a 2021 Canadian documentary film, directed by Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and Kirk Thomas. The film is a portrait of the Notic Streetball Crew, a streetball team who were active in Vancouver in the early 2000s; Schaulin-Rioux and Thomas got their start in the film industry making short documentary films and performance videos about the team.
Elizabeth Lazebnik is a Latvian Canadian filmmaker from Toronto, Ontario, whose full-length feature debut Be Still was released in 2021. The film, which premiered at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival, was a Vancouver Film Critics Circle nominee for Best British Columbia Film, and Lazebnik was a nominee for the One to Watch award, at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2021. The film also won three Leo awards and received the Best Canadian Feature Film award at the 20th Female Eye Film Festival. Be Still is scheduled for release in 2023 by Game Theory Films.
Unloved: Huronia's Forgotten Children is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Barri Cohen and released in 2022. The film documents the history of child abuse at Ontario's Huronia Regional Centre facility for developmentally disabled children, based in part on the story of her own two older brothers, Alfred and Louis, who died at the institution.
Antoine Bourges is a French-Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is most noted for his 2012 mid-length docudrama film East Hastings Pharmacy, which was the winner of the Colin Low Award at the 2013 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, and his 2017 narrative feature film Fail to Appear, which was a Vancouver Film Critics Circle nominee for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2017.
Brett Story is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, most noted for her 2016 film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes.
Someone Lives Here is a 2023 Canadian documentary film, directed by Zack Russell. The film profiles Khaleel Seivwright, a carpenter who has launched a project of building small private shelters for homeless people in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic, against the bureaucratic resistance of the city government.
Julia Ivanova is a Russian-born Canadian documentary filmmaker based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is most noted for her films Family Portrait in Black and White, which won the award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the 2011 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and was a shortlisted Genie Award nominee for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 32nd Genie Awards in 2012, and Limit Is the Sky, which won the Colin Low Award at the 2017 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
Steve J. Adams is a Canadian film director who co-directs with Sean Horlor under their production company, Nootka St.
