Hot Docs Awards

Robyn Citizen is Director of Programming, Festival and Cinematheque at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), a role she has held since January 2022. She leads the team of programmers, overseeing the Official Selection and shaping festival strategy. CItizen has curated across regions and sections, including as lead programmer for Platform, TIFF’s competitive program spotlighting distinctive directorial voices. In the year-round Cinematheque she guides programming direction and ensures operations support the department’s mandate. Before TIFF, Citizen earned a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University and was a Lecturer at the University of British Columbia. Most recently, she taught an seminar at University of Toronto exploring how digital cultures and interactive storytelling platforms are reshaping contemporary genre cinema. She has served on international festival juries, programmed for the Human Rights Film Festival, and was Board Co-Chair of the Breakthroughs Film Festival.

Daniela Michel is the Founding Director of the Morelia International Film Festival, an annual event launched in 2003 to support and promote a new generation of Mexican filmmakers. The festival has an ongoing partnership with the Critics’ Week section of the Cannes Film Festival.  She holds a degree in English Literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and studied filmmaking at Mexico’s Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica. She has curated major retrospectives of Mexican classic cinema in and outside Mexico, including at the MoMA in New York City and the Cinémathèque française in Paris. Michel has also served on the Jury for the Un Certain Regard and La Semaine de la Critique sections of the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Locarno International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Rome Film Fest, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Sarajevo Film Festival, among other festivals, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Media Arts Fellowships, the Fulbright García-Robles Film Fellowships, the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Lina Rodriguez is a Colombian Canadian filmmaker. She has written, directed, and produced six short films (Convergences et rencontres, Pont du Carrousel, Einschnitte, Protocol, ante mis ojos, Aquí y allá) and five features (Señoritas, Mañana a esta hora, Mis dos voces, So Much Tendernessand Puntos de fuga), which have been showcased in festivals including the Berlinale, TIFF, Locarno, the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma and NYFF. She has had retrospectives of her work screened at Sala Leopoldo Lugones, Cineteca Madrid, Cinemateca de Bogotá and her films are currently featured on the Criterion Channel.

Avril Benoît is the former CEO of Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières, in New York. After a distinguished career as a journalist and documentary maker in Canada, she went on to work with the international humanitarian organization almost 20 years ago as an operational and communications leader in crisis zones around the world. A recent returnee from the U.S., now based in Quebec, she serves as an advisor to global organizations navigating complex geopolitical issues and funding challenges.

Jason Gorber is a film journalist, programmer and member of the Toronto Film Critics Association, the Critics Choice Association and OFCS .  
 
He is the Director of Film Programming at the Blue Mountain Film + Media Festival, Editor-in-Chief/Chief Critic at That Shelf, CBC Radio Metro Morning's Film Correspondent, and regularly contributes to POV Magazine, A.V. Club, RogerEbert.com and Next Best Picture. 

Yiqian Zhang is a documentary producer and founder of Toronto-based company Electric Shadow. She grew up and began her career in Beijing, China, before moving to Canada in 2016. She was co-producer on Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s Academy-award-winning, Sundance award-winning, Emmy-award-winning documentary American Factory (2019), which sold to Netflix and launches worldwide. She has worked across a range of productions as a producer, associate producer, and field producer, including the Academy Award-shortlisted documentary Hidden Letters (2022), directed by Violet Du Feng, and Fruit is Ripe (2025) by Yuqi Kang. Her work has been featured on CBC, PBS and Telus, and has been selected and awarded at major international festivals including Sundance, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, and Tribeca. Yiqian is an alumna of Berlinale Talents, EAVE NSI Access BIPOC Producers, DOC Institute’s Breakthrough Program, and Berlinale’s EFM Toolbox Programme. 

Fazila Amiri is an Afghan-Canadian director and screenwriter based in Toronto. She holds an MFA in Film Production from York University. Her debut documentary feature, AND STILL I SING (2022), premiered at the 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, DocEdge, Sydney Film Festival, Sheffield DocFest, and received the Best Music Documentary Feature award at the 53rd Nashville Film Festival. Amiri participated in the 2021 Cannes Docs, 2020 Hot Docs Accelerator Lab, 2019 RIDM Talent Lab, and Telefilm Talent to Watch program. She is currently developing her latest feature film, The Literary Circle of Kabul.

Martin Edralin is a Filipino-Canadian filmmaker. His latest film, La Mayordomía, won the Hot Docs Audience Award for Short Documentary (2025) and was selected for TIFF Canada’s Top Ten (2026). His narrative short films have screened at TIFF and Sundance and have been awarded by Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand, and the Canadian Screen Awards. His debut feature, Islands, premiered at SXSW where it was awarded Special Jury Recognition.

With over two decades of professional work experience in the film and television industry, holding both key and Executive-level roles, Shonna Foster is an accomplished director-producer who brings creative vision and strategic expertise to every project. She is known for championing underrepresented voices and communities, collaborating with talent, executives, and independent producers across Canada to deliver compelling, impactful, and socially relevant stories. Shonna has juried several film festivals and has been recognized for her impactful contributions supporting and mentoring emerging talent and excellence in Canada's film and television industry. With a deep passion for film and profound respect for documentary filmmakers, Shonna is honoured to serve as a jury member, celebrating bold voices and powerful storytelling.