Canoo

How are acts of witnessing transformed in the digital age when memory, justice and spectacle collide? Centred on Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s murder, and many others, this urgent examination exposes the cost of going viral while Black.

APR 25, 1:45 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

Growing up in rural Turkey, Halime is a woman who has always defied tradition. Now, she rallies friends to stage a women’s shooting competition, igniting lively debates and unexpected alliances in this funny and quietly subversive film about claiming space on your own terms.

MAY 3, 10:30 AM | TIFF Lightbox 2

Through thoughtful letters from prison, an anarchist incarcerated since 1980 reflects on his radical past. This meditative portrait pairs humane narration with contemporary Japanese landscapes, exploring the quiet tensions between aging, political militancy and time itself.

APR 28, 5:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 4

Ancestors trapped in museum archives demand a reckoning, and it’s time we listen. Guided by defiant Indigenous voices—past, present and future—and shaped with a bold artistic vision, this urgent film confronts entrenched practices and calls for the rightful return of Indigenous human remains to their community.

MAY 1, 7:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 4

A queer filmmaker creates an intimate time capsule for his unborn nephew as his sister, who is neurodivergent, unexpectedly becomes pregnant. Spanning five years of home archives, the film documents a Vietnamese family’s journey to overcome traditional expectations and heal old wounds.

APR 26, 8:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

With unprecedented access to pioneering feminist experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer and her extraordinary archive, this powerfully crafted portrait lets Hammer claim authorship of her own legacy, honouring and celebrating her as a trailblazer who transformed lesbian cinema.

APR 25, 9:15 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
APR 26, 1:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

A love story blossoms between a London-based Lebanese journalist and her on-the-ground contact, a Syrian-based cameraman, through 13 years of war, revolutions and exile. But can two people from such disparate worlds make a life together?

APR 29, 5:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

From colonial Haiti’s haunted cane fields to the flickering screens of Hollywood horror, the living dead’s buried origins are unearthed and reclaimed as a symbol of survival and spiritual resistance.

APR 25, 11:00 AM | TIFF Lightbox 1

Forcibly disappeared as a student in 1970s Morocco, activist Fatna El Bouih examines her life thus far, the work still left to do and her dream of change.

MAY 1, 2:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2
MAY 2, 11:00 AM | TIFF Lightbox 1

In a remote Georgian village bordering Armenia, three friends struggle with the tension between inherited destiny and the desire to forge one’s own path, torn between obligation and desire, tradition and change, the world they know and the one they dream of.

APR 27, 8:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

Filmed entirely on her phone over five years, 16-year-old Soraya documents her harrowing attempts to flee Iran for Austria. Through surreal animations and sculptures, the young Afghan artist transforms her experiences of domestic violence and displacement into a powerful, self-narrated testament to survival.

APR 30, 7:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

In the West Bank lies an elementary school organized and run by a couple set on teaching their young Palestinian students non-violent resistance, offering a refuge from the escalating uncertainty that surrounds them.

APR 30, 8:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

In a brave effort to reconnect with her family, a Canadian filmmaker returns to her ancestral home of Guadeloupe to discover families torn apart over land inheritance—a relic of French colonial legacy that continues to fracture Guadeloupean families today.

APR 30, 4:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

Against the immersive backdrop of the annual Christmas jaripeo—a Mexican rodeo-style festival—the notion of cowboys and hypermasculinity is put under a lens, revealing intimate memories and desires in a celebration of queer self-expression and belonging.

APR 25, 2:00 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

Everybody cut footloose! From chart-topping anthems to movie soundtracks, multi-award-winning singer songwriter Kenny Loggins reflects on a career that defined a generation, tracing his life on and off stage across decades of reinvention.

APR 27, 9:45 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

In the Iranian desert, an elderly man and his wife face mortality and fading bonds. Seeking solace in a handmade cave, the man struggles to reconnect with his past in this lyrical and visually striking study of a vanishing way of life.

APR 26, 10:00 AM | TIFF Lightbox 3

The courageous journey of a determined disabled advocate living with a tethered spinal cord and chronic pain, while balancing love, legacy and the fight for bodily autonomy as she chooses how she wants to leave the world: on her own terms.

APR 25, 10:45 AM | TIFF Lightbox 2

Meet Mierle Laderman Ukeles—an artist whose name should be better known. Her groundbreaking performance art and manifesto on maintenance art led her to become NYC’s Department of Sanitation’s first artist-in-residence.

APR 29, 2:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

A daughter traces the disappearance of her beloved father—Libyan Foreign Minister and peaceful opposition leader to dictator Muammar Qaddafi—intimately exploring how authoritarian power has reverberated through her family and country amidst a two-decade long search.

MAY 1, 8:15 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1

What is the legacy of Myspace? Pulling at the heartstrings of millennials and curious newcomers alike, this nostalgic portrait traces how this pioneering social networking platform shaped the digital world we now inhabit, from online fame to social media overload.

APR 28, 9:45 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

At 16, Nekai Foster was shot while walking home in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood. His journey of survival and recovery—defying all medical odds as he relearns to walk—exposes how gun violence shapes bodies, families and communities.

APR 24, 6:00 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
APR 25, 10:45 AM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

For over a decade, filmmaker Sam Green has chronicled the ever-changing Guinness World Record holder of “Oldest Person in the World.” Weaving together his personal experiences of fatherhood, ageing and loss, Green offers a poignant meditation on family, mortality and the meaning of life.

MAY 2, 8:15 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

From exile in Amsterdam, filmmaker Dawood Hilmandi reflects on his family nickname, Paikar, the Persian word for warrior. Returning to Iran to reconcile with his authoritarian father, their journey to Afghanistan during a pandemic transforms a lifetime of displacement into a story of survival.

APR 27, 8:15 PM | TIFF Lightbox 3

Along the Lawa River, Wayana families live with the quiet aftershocks of intrusion. In luminous black-and-white, this lyrical film traces how mining, missionaries and medicine ripple through daily life, revealing colonial histories etched into lands and bodies.

APR 24, 9:00 PM | TIFF Lightbox 4

Amidst a deadly overdose crisis in Vancouver, a daring activist funds a non-profit drug testing centre by operating the illicit Coca Leaf Café and Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary, risking everything to provide life-saving harm reduction and advocate for drug reform.

APR 29, 4:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

This investigative look at the highly controversial practice of animal testing—centred on the story of primate scientist turned animal rights activist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel—questions if the harm to animals and the human scientists who care for them is justified by the pursuit of scientific advancement.

MAY 1, 5:15 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema
MAY 2, 2:00 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

Along the Dniester River, a pacifist farming community maintains a centuries-old way of life. As the Russian invasion nears, these traditional isolationists must find their own way to support the front, bridging the gap between their peaceful faith and a nation at war.

APR 30, 11:00 AM | TIFF Lightbox 2

Fiercely independent journalist Amy Goodman has spent three decades holding the powerful to account, reporting from conflict zones and the Democracy Now! newsroom as an essential voice highlighting global issues and pursuing truth in an era of “alternative” facts.

APR 29, 9:15 PM | Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema

After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Sandro begins writing down his memories—incredible tales previously unknown to his family. His son, the filmmaker, delves deeper, bringing to life colourful and carefully crafted episodes filled with irony, drama and comedy.

APR 30, 1:45 PM | TIFF Lightbox 2

This dynamic portrait of Toni Cade Bambara, the visionary Black feminist writer, filmmaker and activist, celebrates her life with power and urgency. Through rare archives and intimate reflections from those she inspired, we learn lessons in agency, community resilience and the transformative impact of cultural organizing.

APR 27, 4:30 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1
APR 28, 2:00 PM | TIFF Lightbox 1