Hot Docs 2024

The dark side of digital advertising is exposed in The Click Trap. Tech giants such as Google and Facebook have effectively turned themselves into advertising companies, by tracking users around …

French filmmaker Emmanuel Reyé investigates the worst accident in the history of motor racing, which took the lives of two of his uncles in Le Mans 55: The Unauthorized Investigation. …

A Mongolian woman splits her time being a mother and a member of a Nationalist gang in Daughter of Genghis. Gerel Byamba is a Mongolian woman, who leads an all-woman …

The lives of the youth of Baghdad following the 2019 protests are explored in Immortals. Today in Iraq, 60% of the country is under the age of 25. Milo is …

Current and former Amazon employees try to unionize at a Staton Island fulfillment centre in Union. Chris Smalls is a former employee of Amazon’s JFK-8 FullFilment Centre on Staton Island, …

An e-commerce blogger is targeted by an aggressive cyber-stalker in Whatever It Takes. For over 25 years Natick, Massachusetts resident Ina Steiner and her husband David operated the blog EcommerceBytes, …

The Japanese dance form of Butoh is explored in Invisible People. Butoh is a contemporary Japanese dance that flows between revolt, eroticism, trance, prayer, ancestral experience, and physical anonymity. Yoshito …

British actors try to stage a full production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the world of Grand Theft Auto Online in Grand Theft Hamlet. Unable to find acting roles during …

A Cree survivor of colonial trauma finds solace in his passion for the stars in Wilfred Buck. Wilfred Buck had a traumatic upbringing, with his siblings being victims of the …

Cree photographer and filmmaker Neil Diamond traces the Indigenous influence on Western culture and identity in Red Fever. Neil Diamond is a Cree photographer and filmmaker, but he doesn’t meet …

LGBTQ poet Staceyann Chin has spent decades trying to reconcile the abandonment by her mother in A Mother Apart. When Staceyann Chin was a 9-year-old in Jamaica, her mother Hazel …

At the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, we sat down with Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Ilse Moreno to speak about her short documentary The Canadian Dream. The 9-minute-long short had …

The First Nations of North America band together to repatriate buffalo to their territories in Singing Back the Buffalo. In 2014, Blackfoot Elder Leroy Little Bear introduced a treaty with …

A young man with a GNAO1 Neurodevelopmental Disorder documents his own experiences living as someone with a disability in The Ride Ahead. Samuel Habib grew up with symptoms of cerebral …

A young man tries to reconcile his father’s death with the help of old home movie recordings in My Dad’s Tapes. On August 9, 2006, Leonard Watson dropped off his …

Four neurodiverse teens in Victoria, Australia prepare to participate in the school musical in This is Going to Be Big. At Macedon Ranges Specialist School in Victoria, Australia, music teacher …

Members of the Wet’suwet’en nation fight for the sovereignty of their unceded territory in Yinah. The Wet’suwet’en hold 22,000 km² of unceded territory on the west coast of Turtle Island. …

Martin Scorsese hosts a look back at the partnership between British filmmaker Michael Powell and Hungarian screenwriter Emeric Pressburger in Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger. Martin …

The career of filmmaker Michel Gondry is looked back upon in Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself. Beginning as the drummer for the band Oui Oui, Michel Gondry became an influential …

In 2003, a group of 8 artists lived in an underutilized space in a Providence, Road Island mall in Secret Mall Apartment. The Providence Place Pall was built in the …

The history and continued influence of disco is examined in Disco’s Revenge. Beginning in underground nightclubs following the 1969 Stonewall riots, disco grew from a niche within the LGBTQ and …

Animated reenactments are used to tell the story of a train ticket forgery operation in 1990s Budapest in Pelikan Blue. Ákos (Norman Lévai), Petya (Kornél Tegyi), and Laci (Ágoston Kenéz) …

A 25-year-old Quebecois man is willing to do anything to become the best Michael Jackson impersonator in Me, Michael and I. Freddy Duffour is a 25-year-old man from Quebec who …

At the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, I met with director and subject Patricia Franquesa to speak about her film My Sextortion Diary, which had its Canadian Premiere …

A small Irish village has an unfortunate relationship with Christmas in So This is Christmas. It is late November in a quiet Irish town and it’ll soon be time for …

Magician Shawn Farquhar pieces together a 500-year-old murder case hidden within a deck of playing cards in Lost in the Shuffle. Two time world champion magcian Shawn Farquhar like performing …

A Japanese journalist investigates her own sexual assault in Black Box Diaries. In May 2017, Shiori Ito goes public about how she was raped by Yamaguchi, the Washington cheif of …

Three couples share their love of BASE jumping in Fly. Beginning as an outlaw act, BASE jumping has become known as one of the most extreme sports. Jimmy and Marta …

British-American comedian Amy Hoggart (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee) investigates the lobbying efforts to keep the declawing of cats legal in American Cats: The Good, the Bad, and the Cuddly. …

If taken at face value, the opening weekend of the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival proceeded as it normally would. First-year president Marie Nelson would introduce the opening …

Prisoners go on a mass hunger strike to protest keeping people in solitary confinement for decades in The Strike. Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit was opened in 1989 …

A couple develops an A.I. robot in the hope that their love transcends their lives in Love Machina. Martine and Bina Rothblatt are the founders of the Teresim Movement Foundation. …

Generative AI is used to construct a documentary about electronic music artist Brian Eno in real-time with Eno. Brian Eno is best known as a founding member of Roxy Music, …

Director Patricia Franquesa documents her own experience of being blackmailed over stolen private photos in My Sextortion Diary. While on a business trip in May 2019, Pati’s laptop was stolen …

Lucy Lawless directs this biography of New Zealand-born CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth in Never Look Away. Margaret Moth was the first female camera operator from television in New Zealand, who …

The nearly forgotten story of one of pop music’s first black trans performers is told in Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story. In the 1960s Jackie Shane was a …

The provocative electro-punk artist goes on tour for the 20th anniversary of her debut album in Teaches of Peaches. Toronto-born Merrill Nisker, better known by her stage name Peaches, is …

The life and career of Luther Vandross are looked back upon in Luther: Never Too Much. Luther Vandross grew up in the Brox with a love of music and in …

With the news of the mass exodus of ten programming team members still fresh on everyone’s might, and later updated to include news of the departure of Artistic director Hussain …

Tomorrow morning the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is scheduled to announce the line-up for the 31st annual edition of the film festival to be held from April 25-May …