Hot Docs

Hot Docs Review: 'The Forbidden Reel' Is an Essential Crash Course in Afghani History as Told Through Its Cinema

Directed by Ariel Nasr

PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020

The Afghan Film Organization was, at one point in time, the last respite for the preservation of Afghanistan's rich yet underexposed cinema...

Hot Docs Review: 'Mayor' Highlights the Day-to-Day Practicalities of Palestinian Political Life

Directed by David Osit

PUBLISHED Jun 1, 2020

Few documentaries come across discussion of a Christmas tree that's politically fraught. In Mayor, director David Osit's sophomore feature,...

Toronto's Hot Docs Festival Announces 2020 Lineup Without Screening Dates

PUBLISHED Apr 14, 2020

After postponing its 2020 edition last month, Toronto's Hot Docs festival has revealed its lineup ahead of announcing any firm dates "to ho...

'Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind' Is a Familiar Tale Well Told

Directed by Joan Tosoni and Martha Kehoe

PUBLISHED May 23, 2019

Rock docs rarely offer contrition from their subjects. Yet it's the first things we see in the opening scene of the new Gordon Lightfoot do...

Hot Docs Review: 'Pipe Dreams' Is a Gripping Look at an International Music Competition

Directed by Stacey Tenenbaum

PUBLISHED Apr 24, 2019

Stacey Tenenbaum's surprisingly high-stakes documentary Pipe Dreams follows five musicians in the months leading up to the Canadian Interna...

Here Are All the Music Movies Playing Hot Docs in 2019

PUBLISHED Mar 22, 2019

Once again, this spring will see Toronto welcomely inundated with an onslaught of non-fiction films as Hot Docs returns from April 25 to Ma...

Pick of the Litter

Directed by Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman

PUBLISHED May 2, 2018

Aside from providing the ins-and-outs of how a valuable service works, documentary Pick of the Litter is just positively irresistible. As w...

Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Directed by Sara Driver

PUBLISHED May 1, 2018

When Jean-Michel Basquiat moved to Manhatten's Lower East Side in the late '70s, it was a creative hub. Homeless, but wanting to paint, he...