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Director Kenya-Jade Pinto’s terrifying techsposé The Sandbox reveals the sinister side of surveillance, and how Big Data has become Big Brother — especially in border-control operations. We posed our Qs à la mode to Kenya-Jade, and here’s what she shared! If I had to describe my film using only...
In Barbara Forever, director Brydie O’Connor deftly assembles a compelling and comprehensive profile of pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer using a wealth of clips, photos, interviews and footage from Hammer’s personal archive. We posed our Qs à la mode to Brydie, and here’s what she shared! If I had...
That’s right: this year, my list of must-check-out films at the festival is so long that I’ve decided to break it into two parts. I’ve screened 62 documentaries – in their entirety, folks – and have rounded up 14 (!) features worthy of a spot on your to-see list....
In Alexandra Kern’s poignant short film, Some Kind of Refuge, a pair of longtime residents reflect on their riverside way of life as some of the few remaining in The Batture, a seasonally flooded settlement along the Mississippi, just outside of New Orleans. We posed our Qs à la...
In Let Our Mountains Live, director Håvard Bustnes chronicles the years-long efforts of Sámi reindeer herders and an army of young activists to uphold their Indigenous rights and protect critical grazing land from overdevelopment by Norwegian power companies. We posed our Qs à la mode to Havard, and here’s...
The 2026 festival kicks off on April 23 with the world premiere of Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions, director Michelle Mama’s rockin’ and revelatory profile of the Rough Trade frontwoman, trailblazing queer icon, and music-industry pioneer. We posed our Qs à la mode to Michelle, and here’s what she...
Maybe it’s a product of the erosion of society’s collective attention span or maybe it’s because the caliber of short documentaries continues to rise every year, but some of the best docs I’ve seen at recent fests have all been under an hour long. And this year’s Hot Docs...
It’s Hot Docs season again, the festival will be unspooling some 115 films in 2026, and my initial to-check-out list was some 60+ strong. Meep! Blame a welcome uptick in documentaries on topics to which I’m drawn — science, technology, artists, entertainment, women, and the environment. Here are 11...
Hot Docs is now over, the awards have been handed out, and my coverage is winding to a close. My final tally of documentaries watched is 48 — not as many as in previous years when I’d average closer to 60, but the festival lineup itself also shrank by...
Whether it’s fighting for equal rights, challenging the status quo, striving to make the world a better place, or all of those things combined, documentaries at this year’s fest continue to shine a spotlight on people making a difference. Here are five such films that I checked out! The...
ICYMI, I already shared my list of seven must-see short documentaries at Hot Docs 2025. Those shorts were fantastic. The rest of the shorts I screened ranged from very good to, IMO, not good at all. Here are eight more short and mid-length docs I checked out this year....
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love documentaries that revolve around the theme of competition, and I’ve lost count of how many I’ve seen in the 20 or so years I’ve been attending Hot Docs. This year, I added four more to my “seen it!” list! Saints...
