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The NFB @ Hot Docs

Explore a rich and wide-ranging collection of NFB films that have been awarded at Hot Docs, which has been celebrating the art of documentary filmmaking since it was founded in 1993.

  • Perfecting the Art of Longing
    Perfecting the Art of Longing
    Kitra Cahana 2021 12 min
    Cut off from his loved ones due to the pandemic lockdown, a quadriplegic rabbi in a long-term-care facility is filmed remotely by his daughter. Offering powerful meditations on love and hope, Perfecting the Art of Longing shows us what it means to be alive in a state of profound isolation.
  • Someone Like Me
    Someone Like Me
    Sean Horlor  &  Steve J. Adams 2021 1 h 19 min
    TRIGGER WARNING: This film contains scenes depicting homophobia and violence, which may be disturbing to some viewers.

    Someone Like Me follows the parallel journeys of Drake, a gay asylum seeker from Uganda, and a group of strangers from Vancouver’s queer community who are tasked with supporting his resettlement in Canada. Together, they embark on a year-long quest for personal freedom, revealing how in a world where one must constantly fight for the right to exist, survival itself becomes a victory.
  • Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
    Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
    Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers 2021 2 h 4 min
    Follow filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as she creates an intimate portrait of her community and the impacts of the substance use and overdose epidemic. Witness the change brought by community members with substance-use disorder, first responders and medical professionals as they strive for harm reduction in the Kainai First Nation.
  • Stateless
    Stateless
    Michèle Stephenson 2020 1 h 35 min
    In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013: the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows the grassroots campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris, as she challenges electoral corruption and fights to protect the right to citizenship for all people.
  • nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up
    nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up
    Tasha Hubbard 2019 1 h 38 min
    On August 9, 2016, a young Cree man named Colten Boushie died from a gunshot to the back of his head after entering Gerald Stanley’s rural property with his friends. The jury’s subsequent acquittal of Stanley captured international attention, raising questions about racism embedded within Canada’s legal system and propelling Colten’s family to national and international stages in their pursuit of justice. Sensitively directed by Tasha Hubbard, nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up weaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker’s own adoption, the stark history of colonialism on the Prairies, and a vision of a future where Indigenous children can live safely on their homelands.
  • What Walaa Wants
    What Walaa Wants
    Christy Garland 2018 1 h 29 min
    Raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank while her mother was in an Israeli prison, Walaa is determined to become one of the few women in the Palestinian Security Forces—not easy for a girl who breaks all the rules. Following Walaa from the ages of 15 to 21 with an intimate POV, What Walaa Wants tells the compelling story of a defiant young girl who navigates formidable obstacles, disproving the negative predictions from her surroundings and the world at large.
  • Unarmed Verses
    Unarmed Verses
    Charles Officer 2016 1 h 25 min
    This feature documentary presents a thoughtful and vivid portrait of a community facing imposed relocation. At the centre of the story is a remarkably astute and luminous 12-year-old black girl whose poignant observations about life, the soul, and the power of art give voice to those rarely heard in society. Unarmed Verses is a cinematic rendering of our universal need for self-expression and belonging.
  • Out of Mind, Out of Sight
    Out of Mind, Out of Sight
    John Kastner 2014 1 h 27 min
    This feature documentary profiles four residents of the Brockville Mental Health Centre, a forensic psychiatric hospital for people who have committed violent crimes. Four patients—two men and two women—struggle to gain control over their lives so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them. Shrouded in stigma, institutions like this one are places into which patients disappear from public view for years.

    Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner was granted unprecedented access to the Brockville facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness.
  • Alphée of the Stars
    Alphée of the Stars
    Hugo Latulippe 2012 1 h 22 min
    Alphée has a rare genetic disorder that hampers her development. Yet she continues to defy medical expectations. In a moving declaration of love for his daughter, filmmaker Hugo Latulippe and his family steal away for a year, focusing on his daughter's learning, so that she can integrate into a regular classroom when they get home.
  • The Boxing Girls of Kabul
    The Boxing Girls of Kabul
    Ariel Nasr 2011 52 min
    In this feature documentary, a remarkable group of young Afghan women dream of representing their country as boxers at the 2012 Olympics, embarking on a journey of both personal and political transformation.
  • Junior
    Junior
    Isabelle Lavigne  &  Stéphane Thibault 2008 1 h 36 min
    This full-length documentary offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at our national sport, hockey. Taking in an entire season of the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, this film reveals the daily lives of players and managers on this Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team.

    Admired and treated like professionals, junior hockey players are teenagers absorbed by their future. Trainers, shareholders, agents, scouts and parents: all eyes are fixed on these elite young players, even though only a tiny number of them will succeed in playing at the highest level.
  • Forgiveness: Stories for Our Time
    Forgiveness: Stories for Our Time
    Johanna Lunn 2007 53 min
    This feature-length documentary focuses on four individuals who have lived through painful and horrific events but have managed to find the ability to forgive. Lesley Parrott, Anne Marie Hagan, Alan McBride, and Reverend Julie Nicholson have all lost family members through violent crimes and are trying to absorb, cope with, and move past it. In a world wracked by increasing violence and horror, the film brings hope that there are other possibilities beyond blind revenge; that in forgiving others we can set ourselves free.
  • Vendetta Song
    Vendetta Song
    Eylem Kaftan 2005 52 min
    This short documentary follows Montreal filmmaker Eylem Kaftan as she travels to Turkey in an attempt to unravel the 30-year-old mystery of her aunt Guzide's murder. As she searches for clues and closure, she encounters antiquated customs in a Kurdish culture she's never known. She knows that her aunt was the victim of a senseless vendetta killing and as she ventures from village to village she pieces together the woman’s final days and closes in on the identity of her killer. Vendetta Song is produced by DLI Productions in co-production with the NFB.
  • La Cueca Sola
    La Cueca Sola
    Marilú Mallet 2003 52 min
    Santiago, Chile. September 11, 1973. A military dictatorship seizes power and wields it for 17 years. Thousands of men disappear. "Donde estan? (Where are they?)," ask the women, their partners in la cueca, the traditional Chilean courtship dance. Surmounting their grief, the women speak out and struggle to restore democracy. Their lives suspended, they continue to dance la cueca sola, alone.

    This documentary by Marilu Mallet tells the stories of five women who suffered under dictatorship and emerged as heroes under democracy. The threads of the five stories are closely intertwined with the history of Chile, encouraging reflection on the burden of heritage, the relativity of happiness and the power of memory. Navigating through the past but firmly moored in the present, the film expresses an entire nation's faith in a future in which such a thing will never happen again.
  • Men of the Deeps
    Men of the Deeps
    John Walker 2003 51 min
    Men of the Deeps is a moving portrait of a group of former Cape Breton miners gathered together by their love of song. They are all members of the Men of the Deeps chorus, whose performances of traditional and contemporary songs evoke their working lives as miners.
  • The Tree That Remembers
    The Tree That Remembers
    Masoud Raouf 2002 50 min
    In 1992 a young Iranian student hanged himself on the outskirts of a small Ontario town. Having escaped the Ayatollah's regime and found a new home in Canada, he could not escape his past. In this film, Masoud Raouf documents the experiences of Iranian-Canadians - former political prisoners like himself - who were active in the Iranian democratic movement and continue to struggle with the past.
  • Unwanted Soldiers
    Unwanted Soldiers
    Jari Osborne 1999 48 min
    This documentary tells the personal story of filmmaker Jari Osborne's father, a Chinese-Canadian veteran. She describes her father's involvement in World War II and uncovers a legacy of discrimination and racism against British Columbia's Chinese-Canadian community. Sworn to secrecy for decades, Osborne's father and his war buddies now vividly recall their top-secret missions behind enemy lines in Southeast Asia. Theirs is a tale of young men proudly fighting for a country that had mistreated them. This film does more than reveal an important period in Canadian history. It pays moving tribute to a father's quiet heroism.
  • The Children of Refus Global
    The Children of Refus Global
    Manon Barbeau 1998 1 h 14 min
    In 1948, Paul-Émile Borduas' Refus global manifesto proclaimed the end of the "reign of fear" embodied by the Duplessis regime. Fifty years later, all the history books mention this document which laid the foundations of modern Quebec. Daughter of one of the signatories, filmmaker Manon Barbeau takes a fresh look at this period. She went to meet the sons and daughters of Barbeau, Borduas, Mousseau and Riopelle, "children of Refus global" who, like her, suffered the consequences of their parents' revolutionary gesture. None of them emerged unscathed from a childhood made up of worries and abandonment, but also of a richness that only art can bring. Especially when it appears to us, as it does here, in the light of emotion.
  • Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square
    Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square
    Shui-Bo Wang 1998 29 min
    Shui-Bo Wang's feature documentary is a visual autobiography of an artist who grew up in China during the historic upheavals of the ‘60s, '70s and '80s. A rich collage of original artwork and family and archival photos presents a personal perspective on the turbulent Cultural Revolution and the years that followed. For Shui-Bo Wang and others of his generation, Tiananmen Square was the central symbol of the new China – a society to be based on equality and cooperation. This animated documentary artfully traces Shui-Bo's roots and his own life journey as he struggles to sort through ideology and arrive at truth.
  • Loyalties
    Loyalties
    Lesley Ann Patten 1999 57 min
    This documentary follows 2 women whose meeting pieces together both halves of a story: that of slave and slave owner. When Dr. Ruth Whitehead meets graduate student Carmelita Robertson, who had come to do research at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, the women realize both their ancestors come from South Carolina, and that their names sound shudderingly familiar. Embarking on a journey to Charleston in search of their connection, Ruth and Carmelita encounter a modern South where the Klan is on trial for burning black churches and where they must come to terms with the thunderous cruelty of the past.
  • Totem Talk
    Totem Talk
    Annie Fraziér Henry 1997 22 min
    Traditional Northwestern Indigenous spiritual images combine with cutting-edge computer animation in this surreal short film about the power of tradition. Three urban Indigenous teens are whisked away to an imaginary land by a magical raven, and there they encounter a totem pole. The totem pole's characters—a raven, a frog and a bear—come to life, becoming their teachers, guides and friends.

    Features a special interview with J. Bradley Hunt, the celebrated Heiltsuk artist on whose work the characters in Totem Talk are based.

  • Tu as crié LET ME GO
    Tu as crié LET ME GO
    Anne Claire Poirier 1998 1 h 36 min
    Filmmaker Anne Claire Poirier captures the most terrible tragedy a mother can imagine – her own daughter's addiction, prostitution, and eventual murder. Determined to use her talent as a filmmaker to find the strength and courage needed to go on, Poirier created a cinematic tour-de-force that delves into the lives of street people. She unearths her daughter's past in order to better understand why she, and other young people, risk their lives for the drugs they believe will set them free.
  • Chile, Obstinate Memory
    Chile, Obstinate Memory
    Patricio Guzmán 1997 58 min
    In this feature documentary, a Chilean filmmaker returns to the motherland for the first time in 23 years. Time is passing. A generation of young Chileans has grown up with no knowledge of the facts surrounding the military coup of September 11, 1973. In his suitcase, The Battle of Chile his 3-part cinéma vérité chronicle of the political tensions in Chile in 1973 and of the violent counterrevolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. His documentary toured the world but was never seen in Chile. Discreetly, he shows it to his friends and a small group of students. After the screening, the young people are in a state of shock. They have an urgent need to know the truth, for it is they who must build the Chile of tomorrow. In Spanish with English subtitles
  • Lost Over Burma: Search for Closure
    Lost Over Burma: Search for Closure
    Garth Pritchard 1997 46 min
    This documentary follows a mission into the Burmese jungle to recover the remains of a RCAF crew of six young Canadians lost during World War II. Their lives and wartime experiences are recalled through the memories of colleagues and families, who attend the emotion-laden funeral near Rangoon, where the men have finally been laid to rest with full military honours.
  • Forgotten Warriors
    Forgotten Warriors
    Loretta Todd 1997 51 min
    This documentary introduces us to thousands of Indigenous Canadians who enlisted and fought alongside their countrymen and women during World War II, even though they could not be conscripted. Ironically, while they fought for the freedom of others, they were being denied equality in their own country and returned home to find their land seized.

    Loretta Todd's poignant film offers forth the testimony of those who were there, and how they managed to heal.
  • The Fate of America
    The Fate of America
    Jacques Godbout 1997 1 h 21 min
    Two well-known Quebec artists (filmmaker Jacques Godbout and playwright René-Daniel Dubois) look at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Whose version of this historic event should prevail? Is history best served by documentary or fiction? We also meet Baron Georges Savarin de Marestan and Andrew Wolfe-Burroughs, direct descendants of Montcalm and Wolfe, both of whom died in the battle that would give birth to Canada and to the province of Quebec. In French with English subtitles.
  • Waiting
    Waiting
    Marie-Claude Harvey 1996 32 min
    This short documentary zooms in on the Dinka population of Alek, South Sudan, during a period of famine. The Dinkas are an extremely patient people. With empty stomachs, they await the next harvest. For the last 40 years, an intermittent state of civil war has divided the country in 2. This time, the population has requested aid. Sacks of grain are dropped from planes, but to prevent rioting, distribution is delayed until the arrival of reinforcements. During this week of waiting, we witness the true face of hunger.
  • Minoru: Memory of Exile
    Minoru: Memory of Exile
    Michael Fukushima 1992 18 min
    The bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor thrust 9-year-old Minoru Fukushima into a world of racism so malevolent he would be forced to leave Canada, the land of his birth. Like thousands of other Japanese Canadians, Minoru and his family were branded as an enemy of Canada, dispatched to internment camps in British Columbia and finally deported to Japan. Directed by Michael Fukushima, Minoru's son, the film combines classical animation with archival material. The memories of the father are interspersed with the voice of the son, weaving a tale of a birthright lost and recovered.