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.
Barry Michael Avrich is a Canadian film director, film producer, author, marketing executive, and arts philanthropist. Avrich's film career has included critically acclaimed films about the entertainment business including The Last Mogul about film producer Lew Wasserman (2005), Glitter Palace about the Motion Picture Country Home (2005), and Guilty Pleasure about the Vanity Fair columnist and author Dominick Dunne (2004). In addition, Avrich produced the Gemini-nominated television special Caesar and Cleopatra (2009) with Christopher Plummer. Avrich also produced Canada's Sports Hall of Fame Awards (2015) as well as the Canadian Screen Awards (2015-2017) and The Scotiabank Giller Prize (2015-Current).
Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Fredrik Gertten. The film is about how Gertten's film company was sued by Dole for the 2009 documentary film Bananas!*. This lawsuit is a type of case known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).
Stories We Tell is a 2012 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Sarah Polley and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). The film explores her family's secrets—including one intimately related to Polley's own identity. Stories We Tell premiered August 29, 2012 at the 69th Venice International Film Festival, then played at the 39th Telluride Film Festival and the 37th Toronto International Film Festival. In 2015, it was added to the Toronto International Film Festival's list of the top 10 Canadian films of all time, at number 10. It was also named the 70th greatest film since 2000 in a 2016 critics' poll by BBC.
Shannon Walsh is a Canadian filmmaker, writer and scholar. She has directed the feature documentaries The Gig Is Up, H2Oil, À St-Henri, le 26 août, Jeppe on a Friday and Illusions of Control. She has also directed music videos for the Montreal based artist Little Scream.
Parabola Films is a Montreal-based Canadian cinema production company founded by Sarah Spring and Selin Murat, a documentary filmmaker. Parabola Films focuses on the production of videos which demonstrate the role of cinema in social change. The company collaborates with other film-making organizations who emphasize storytelling.
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.
Letter from Masanjia is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Leon Lee and released in 2018. The film profiles the case of Sun Yi, a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner turned political prisoner who was responsible for exposing significant human rights abuses at the Masanjia Labor Camp when his letter was found by Oregon resident Julie Keith in a box of Halloween decorations, and made headlines worldwide. The discovery of this letter and the subsequent wide coverage by news agencies in part led to China announcing major reforms, and the abolishment of the labor camp system.
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.
Buddha in Africa is a 2019 South African Swedish documentary film produced, written and directed by Nicole Schafer. The film follows the story of Enock Alu, a Malawian orphan from a rural village growing up between the contrasting African culture and the strict discipline of the Confucian, Buddhist value of system of the Chinese. It explores the impact of the growing influence of Chinese culture in Malawi following increasing trade relations between China and Africa in the past decade.
The Lindalee Tracey Award is an annual film award, presented in memory of Canadian documentary filmmaker Lindalee Tracey to emerging filmmakers whose works reflect values of social justice and a strong personal point of view. Created by Peter Raymont, Tracey's widower and former filmmaking partner, through his production studio White Pine Pictures, the award is presented annually at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival; however, the award is not limited to documentary films, but may be awarded to films in any genre, and films do not have to have been screened as part of the Hot Docs program to be eligible.
Shasha Nakhai is a Filipino-Iranian Canadian film director, most noted as co-director with Rich Williamson of the 2021 film Scarborough. The film won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Picture, and Nakhai and Williamson won the award for Best Director, at the 10th Canadian Screen Awards in 2022.
Zo Reken is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Emanuel Licha and released in 2021. Taking its name from a Haitian Creole slang term for the Toyota Land Cruiser, the film is an exploration of the impact of the international humanitarian aid apparatus on Haiti, centering on the ways in which it can be both a necessary lifeline and an instrument of economic inequality and repression.
One of Ours is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Yasmine Mathurin and released in 2021. The film centres on the 2016 incident in which Josiah Wilson, a Haitian Canadian who was adopted into a Heiltsuk family and raised as a status member of the Heiltsuk Nation, was barred from participating in the All Native Basketball Tournament on the grounds that he is not indigenous by blood.
The Hot Docs Award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary is an annual Canadian film award, presented by the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival to the film selected by jury members as the year's best Canadian feature film in the festival program. The award was presented for the first time in 1998; prior to that year, awards were presented in various genre categories, but no special distinction for Canadian films was presented. The award is sponsored by the Documentary Organization of Canada and Telefilm Canada, and carries a cash prize of $10,000.
Eternal Spring is a 2022 Canadian adult animated documentary film written, directed and co-produced by Jason Loftus. Based around the animation of Chinese artist Daxiong, the film centres on Falun Gong's 2002 hijacking of broadcast television stations in Changchun, and China's continued repression of ethnic and religious minority groups.
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.
Adrianne and the Castle is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Shannon Walsh and released in 2024.
