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.
Where Soldiers Come From is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Heather Courtney. The film is an intimate look at a group of young American men who join the Michigan Army National Guard, their families, and the town they come from. Director Heather Courtney follows these young men closely, as they transition from small town teenagers to Army guardsmen during the war in Afghanistan. Their story continues to follow the 23-year-old veterans dealing with the less visible wounds of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PTSD. It premiered at South by Southwest festival, where it won the best documentary editing award. In 2012, the film won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story, as well as the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award.
Virunga is a 2014 British documentary film directed by Orlando von Einsiedel. It focuses on the conservation work of park rangers within the Congo's Virunga National Park during the rise of the violent M23 Rebellion in 2012 and investigates the activity of the British oil company Soco International within the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Soco International ended up officially exploring oil opportunities in Virunga in April 2014. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on 17 April 2014. After airing on Netflix, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
My Perestroika is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Robin Hessman. It examines life during and after the USSR through the personal stories of five ordinary Russians, who speak about their Soviet childhood, the collapse of the USSR, and contemporary Russia.
The Bethnal Green trio are Amira Abase, Shamima Begum, and Kadiza Sultana, three British girls who attended the Bethnal Green Academy in London before leaving home in February 2015 to join the Islamic State. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, they were among an estimated 550 women and girls from Western countries who had travelled to join IS—part of what some have called "a jihadi, girl-power subculture", the so-called Brides of ISIL. As of 2024, one girl has been reported killed (Sultana), one girl has been stripped of her British citizenship and denied re-entry into the country (Begum) while the third's fate is unknown (Abase).
Fraud is a 2016 conceptual documentary film directed by Dean Fleischer Camp. The film is made up of re-edited homevideos uploaded to YouTube. It tells the fictional story of an average white American family of four obsessively shopping at Big Box stores until their increasing mountain of debt leads them to go to extremes in order to wipe the slate clean and keep the money flowing.
Earthrise is a 2018 documentary by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee. The film tells the story of the first image captured of the Earth from space in 1968, as recalled by the Apollo 8 astronauts. The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2018 and had its online premiere on the New York Times Op-Docs and the PBS Series, POV, on October 2, 2018. In 2018, it won the Audience Award at AFI DOCS and won Best Documentary Short at Raindance Film Festival. After airing on PBS, it was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary at the 40th News and Documentary Emmy Award.
Shamima Begum is a British-born woman who entered Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15. As of 2024, she is living in al-Roj detention camp in Syria.
Hoda Muthana is a U.S.-born Yemeni woman who emigrated from the United States to Syria to join ISIS in November 2014. She surrendered in January 2019 to coalition forces fighting ISIS in Syria and has been denied access back to the United States after a U.S. court ruling rejected her claim to American citizenship. When she was born, her father was a Yemeni diplomat, making her ineligible for American citizenship by birth.
Beginning in 2012, dozens of girls and women traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State (IS), becoming brides of Islamic State fighters. While some traveled willingly, including three British schoolgirls known as the Bethnal Green trio, others were brought to Iraq and Syria as minors by their parents or family or forcefully. Some attempted to travel but were prevented.
The al-Hawl refugee camp is a refugee camp on the southern outskirts of the town of al-Hawl in northern Syria, close to the Syria-Iraq border, which holds individuals displaced from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The camp is nominally controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) but according to the U.S. Government, much of the camp is run by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who use the camp for indoctrination and recruitment purposes.
Roll Red Roll is a 2018 American documentary film, directed and produced by Nancy Schwartzman. It follows the Steubenville High School rape case.
Edward Watts is an English filmmaker who is known for making documentaries and narrative-focused films. He has created films in conjunction with UK television network Channel 4 and ITN Productions. He is known for films including For Sama (2019), Escape From ISIS (2015) and The Mega Brothel (2015).
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.
93Queen is a 2018 documentary film on Hasidic women in Borough Park, Brooklyn who form Ezras Nashim, an all-female ambulance corps. The film follows Judge Rachel Freier, a Hasidic lawyer running for public office as a New York Judge, and mother of six who is determined to shake up the “boys club” in her Hasidic community by creating the first all-female ambulance corps in the United States, as she negotiates her community initiative within the context of a male-dominated Hasidic community.
Not Going Quietly is a 2021 American documentary film, directed by Nicholas Bruckman and produced by Amanda Roddy, following Ady Barkan, embarking on a national campaign for healthcare reform. Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass and Bradley Whitford serve as executive producers.
Tina is a 2021 documentary film directed by Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin. It follows the life and career of musician Tina Turner. The film marked the final appearance of Turner before her death on May 24, 2023.
Begum v Home Secretary [2021] UKSC 7 is the short name of three closely connected proceedings considered together in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, R v Special Immigration Appeals Commission; R v Secretary of State for the Home Department; and Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department, concerning Shamima Begum, a woman born in the United Kingdom who at the age of 15 travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Her intention to return to England in 2019 resulted in a public debate about the handling of returning jihadists.
"Hysterical" is a 2021 American documentary film, directed and produced by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins. It follows multiple comedians throughout their lives on stage and off. Judy Gold, Carmen Lynch, Kathy Griffin, Nikki Glaser, Jessica Kirson, Marina Franklin, Bonnie McFarlane, Rachel Feinstein, Lisa Lampanelli, Kelly Bachman, Iliza Shlesinger, Fortune Feimster, Sherri Shepherd and Margaret Cho appear in the film.
Alba Sotorra is an independent film-director and producer of several documentaries. She has her own production company based in Barcelona.
