Visiting Toronto? Catch the highly anticipated Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

HOT DOCS 2025

Promising an unparalleled celebration of non-fiction storytelling on a global scale.

North America’s leading documentary festival, Hot Docs will present its 32nd annual edition from April 24 to May 4, 2025, in cinemas across Toronto.

From 2662 film submissions, this year’s slate will present 113 documentaries representing 47 countries across 11 diverse programs and will feature 35 world, 14 international, and 26 North American premieres. Furthermore, alongside the premieres of remarkable Canadian and international documentaries, the 2025 Festival will offer an extensive lineup of industry programs and events.

“I am incredibly excited to be able to share these 113 extraordinary films as part of the 32nd Hot Docs Festival,” shared Heather Haynes, Director of Programming, Hot Docs. “Both the documentary landscape and the world of film festivals have been faced with new challenges and so much change over the past few years, and despite all of this, our community has found a way to keep moving forward. We’re honoured to be able to continue to share the powerful work and talent of filmmakers from Canada and around the world with Toronto’s dedicated film-loving audiences. Documentary filmmaking has always played a significant role in expanding on the stories shared in headlines, and in times such as this, when there is so much consistent change and uncertainty both here at home and globally, that expansion is perhaps needed now more than ever.”

Ai Weiwei’s Turandot

The 2025 Hot Docs Festival will open with the world premiere of Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance, directed by award-winning Canadian filmmaker Noam Gonickand produced by Justine Pimlott for the National Film Board of Canada. This ground-breaking feature documentary explores the pivotal moments and courageous actions that sparked Canada’s 2SLGBTQ+ movement.

The Big Ideas series will once again spark insightful conversations with notable guests, including director Maxim Derevianko and special guests of Ai Weiwei’s Turandot; director James Jones and journalist Christo Grozev of Antidote; director Shoshannah Stern and actor Marlee Matlin of Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore; and director Violet Du Feng of The Dating Game.

Selena y Los Dinos
Selena Quintanilla performing on stage; reaching her hand out to a fan. | Credit: Q-Productions, Inc.

The Special Presentations program, showcasing high-profile films, festival circuit heavy hitters, and renowned subjects, includes the world premiere of The Nest, a deeply personal exploration of memory, identity, and intergenerational storytelling by co-directors Chase Joynt and Julietta Singh. Special Presentations receiving an international premiere are Come See Me in the Good Light, which follows spoken word artist and poet laureate of Colorado Andrea Gibson after an incurable cancer diagnosis; Deaf President Now!, a powerful chronicle of the landmark student protest that transformed accessibility rights in the US; Life After, in which celebrated filmmaker Reid Davenport investigates the troubling implications of assisted suicide laws for disabled people; and Selena y Los Dinos, a riveting look at the life and legacy of the “Queen of Tejano Music” Selena Quintanilla.

Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man

Canadian Spectrum Competition, a competitive program showcasing bold new works by Canadian directors, includes the world premieres of are #skoden, in which an iconic Indigenous meme sparks a poignant exploration of the unhoused Albertan man behind the viral phenomenon; Casas Muertas, a lyrical meditation on loss, strength and hope that follows the resilience of three generations of Venezuelans, bound by uncertainty amidst a country-wide economic crisis; Shamed, following an online vigilante and self-described “Creeper Hunter” who seeks out potential sexual predators and ambushes them in videotaped confrontations; and Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man, a luminous exploration of strength and vulnerability that spans generations of Siksika men and boys as they learn to embrace the intricacies of self-discovery amidst a sweeping Prairies backdrop.

I, Poppy
The protagonists Vardibai and her son Mangilal are having an argument about their differing views about poppy farming and the corruption involved. They are standing in their poppy field; the poppies are now ripe and close to harvesting.

International Spectrum Competition, a competitive program spotlighting engaging stories from around the globe, includes a compelling lineup of world premieres: Heritage is a meticulously crafted family snapshot in which two siblings alternate shifts caring for their elderly parents; I Dreamed His Name follows the filmmaker and her sister on a journey of discovery across Colombia’s painful history, thirty years after their Afro-Colombian father’s forced disappearance; I, Poppy follows a son’s fight against corrupt officials while his mother tends their poppy farm in India; King Matt the First takes us on an enchanting journey into the inner world of young Polish sisters as they grapple with impending adulthood; and Unwelcomed examines contrasting perspectives around the migrant crisis in Chile following its most violent anti-immigrant protest in late 2021, sparked by an unprecedented influx of migrants from Venezuela. The International Spectrum Competition program is supported by the Donner Canadian Foundation.

The Longer You Bleed
Car Cemetery on the outskirts of Irpin, Kyiv region, Ukraine. A collection of the civilian vehicles destroyed by Russian forces whilst trying to escape; shot by tanks and otherwise. A stark symbol of Russian brutality.

For the first time in the program’s history, Made In Exile will showcase documentaries created by filmmakers and participants who, driven from their homelands by war, conflict or humanitarian crises, continue to tell stories that demand to be heard. This year’s lineup will include deeply personal and timely narratives from Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine, Palestine and beyond, offering audiences a rare and resonant perspective on survival, displacement and the enduring strength of the creative spirit. Made In Exile will include the world premiere of The Longer You Bleed, which explores the emotional toll that constant consumption of war imagery takes on a group of Gen Z Ukrainians in Berlin. The program will also include Canadian premieres of Khartoum, in which a group of displaced Sudanese filmmakers empower five fellow citizens to re-enact dramatic testimonies of their nation’s descent into civil war; Writing Hawa, in which a mother is freed from the constraints of a 40-year arranged marriage, only to see her hopes for a brighter future decimated by the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan; and Yalla Parkour, a nostalgia-fuelled journey that reveals the harsh realities facing Palestinians through the forming of a relationship between a filmmaker and a young parkour athlete in Gaza.

Aisha’s Story
Palestinian grain miller Aisha Azzam tells her grandchildren the story of the family grinding stones, which her grandparents carried with them when they fled Palestine during the 1948 war.

The World Showcase program features revelatory stories that span the globe, including the world premieres of of Aisha’s Story, in which a Palestinian grain miller in a Jordanian refugee camp safeguards her culture and shares her people’s history through food; Betrayal, following the brother-in-law of Liberian dictator Charles Taylor as he becomes a courageous whistleblower against the dictator’s regime; The Gardener and the Dictator, offering a unique glimpse into China’s tumultuous last century through memories of the filmmaker’s elderly grandparents and their quirky love story; Marriage Cops, in which an all-women police unit in northern India tackles troubled marriages with unexpected wisdom and authority; and Spare My Bones, Coyote!, the story of a Mexican American couple who, for 12 years, have organized biweekly search and rescue missions along the desert border.

Widow Champion
Rodah and other widows work together to build a house for Mary

The acclaimed Persister program will feature films that shine a light on the voices of strong, inspirational women who are speaking up and being heard, including the world premieres of MAMA, in which the filmmaker moves beyond the repair of her broken body into to a deeper, more vulnerable soul healing, following a breast cancer diagnosis, and Widow Champion, in which a widow rises to help other widows reclaim their rightful property, in rural Kenya where women lose their homes after a husband’s death. The program will feature the international premiere of Mama Goals, in which Charlotta abandons a secure full-time healthcare job to pursue her dream of becoming a comedian.

Night Watches Us

The new Tipping Point program features hard-hitting accounts of some of today’s most pressing issues, including the world premiere of Night Watches Us, a poetic blend of music, dance and spoken word, chronicling a family’s desire for justice after a 23-year-old Black father—grappling with a mental crisis—was shot and killed by Montreal police. The program also brings the North American premieres of An American Pastoral, in which a heated school board election In a conservative Pennsylvania town becomes ground zero for America’s culture wars; Colossal, an exploration of the director’s politically polarized family and role they played during the authoritarian regime of longtime Dominican Republic president Joaquín Balaguer; and Facing War, in which NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg needs to use all of his diplomatic skills to keep the Alliance together and committed to standing by Ukraine.

For more information, including tickets and festival passes, visit: www.hotdocs.ca