The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival returns to Toronto for its 33rd edition, April 23 to May 3, 2026, sharing the finest in global non-fiction storytelling. This year’s slate will present 115 documentaries from 51 countries across nine diverse programs, featuring 52 world and international premieres. Furthermore, alongside the premieres of remarkable Canadian and international documentaries, the 2026 Festival will offer an extensive lineup of industry programs and events, including the return of the Hot Docs Forum international industry pitch event.

This year’s lineup of 80 features and 35 shorts will share stories of humanity’s struggles, courage, and ambition, as well as the increasingly evolving world of technology. A total of 30 Canadian films will screen as official selections, and 14 films received support from Hot Docs’ film funds and market programs, including the Hot Docs Forum and Deal Maker. Hot Docs will welcome several filmmakers and guests to the Festival to participate in post-screening Q&As.

Programs

The 2026 Hot Docs Festival will open with the world premiere of Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions, directed by Canadian filmmaker Michelle Mama, on Thursday, April 23 at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. The Canadian film spotlights queer rock icon Carole Pope as she reclaims her rightful place in music history and received funding in 2023 from the Hot Docs-Slaight Family Fund to support the project in its development stage.

The Big Ideas series will once again spark insightful conversations with notable guests, including Love Apptually director Shalini Kantayya, Myspace director Tommy Avallone, A War on Women director Raha Shirazi, and Steal This Story, Please! director Tia Lessin.

The Special Presentations program, showcasing high-profile films, festival circuit heavy hitters, and renowned subjects, includes the world premieres of director Shalini Kantayya’s Love Apptually, about a journalist’s exploration of dating app algorithms; director Dori Berinstein’s Kenny Loggins: Conviction of the Heart, which traces the life and career of the multi-award-winning singer-songwriter who soundtracked some of Hollywood’s most unforgettable movie moments; director Tommy Avallone’s 

Myspace, a portrait of the pioneering social networking platform; director Mark Myers’s The Tower That Built a City, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Toronto’s skyline-defining CN Tower; and director Raha Shirazi’s A War on Women, which traces 40 years of feminist resistance by Iranian women against the Islamic Republic.

Canadian Spectrum Competition, a competitive program showcasing bold new works by Canadian directors, includes the world premieres of director Sébastien Trahan’s Code of Misconduct, in which an investigative journalist’s duty to follow the facts leads to the trial of five Canadian professional hockey players charged with sexual assault; Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson’s Concrete Turned to Sand, in which local oyster farmers ply their trade amidst a rapidly changing environment; Ree Wright and Meaghan Wright’s The Last Days of April, the courageous journey of a determined disabled advocate living with a tethered spinal cord and chronic pain; director Rico King’s Nekai Walks, in which Nekai Foster defies all medical odds and relearns to walk after being shot while walking home in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood; Oscar-nominated director Kim Nguyen’s Saigon Story: Two Shootings in the Forest Kingdom, which reveals the elusive connection between two families and photojournalist Eddie Adams’s iconic photo in the wake of the Vietnam War; and Evan Adams and Eileen Francis’s təm kʷaθ nan Namesake, in which a request from the Tla’amin Nation to change the name of Powell River, B.C ignites a heated debate about whose history is told and respected. 

International Spectrum Competition, a competitive program spotlighting engaging stories from around the globe, includes a compelling lineup of world premieres: The 49th Year directed by Heidrun Holzfeind tells the story of an anarchist incarcerated since 1980 as he reflects on his radical past; A Distant Call directed by Andrea Suwito captures a rare, meditative struggle between local tradition and modern faith in a remote Indonesian community with ancient traditions; LandStone directed by Faraz Fadaian takes viewers into the Iranian desert where an elderly man and his wife face mortality and fading bonds while seeking solace in a handmade cave; Parasisi directed by Zaïde Bil and Sébastien Segers traces how mining, missionaries and medicine ripple through daily life along the Lawa River; Stories for Sandro directed by Giacomo Boeri brings to life the memories of the filmmaker’s father after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s; Vanishing Tracks directed by Hamed Zolfaghari follows a family in Iran’s remote nomadic landscape as they navigate their traditional existence in a modern world, and Vegapolis directed by Micha Barban Dangerfield brings audiences inside a Montpellier rink where teens gather each week, forging friendships, dissecting crushes and dreaming amidst laser lights and thumping bass.

The World Showcase program features revelatory stories that span the globe, including the world premieres of Simon Ennis and Brad Abrahams’s Gimme Truth, which follows truth-seekers and exbelievers into the gravitational pull of conspiracy culture; Jevan Crittenden and Nate Slaco’s In Tyee Country, in which a century-old fishing club on Canada’s west coast faces an existential crisis as salmon populations dwindle; and Alisher Balfanbayev’s Searching for Drug Peace, in which a daring activist risks everything to fund a non-profit drug testing centre and provide life-saving harm reduction amidst a deadly overdose crisis in Vancouver.

Made In Brazil will showcase new documentaries from Brazil including the world premiere of Solar Shadow from directors Hugo Haddad and Isadora Canela, a beautiful exploration of ancestral Indigenous astronomy in Brazil, and the international premiere of Dona Onete – This Tiny Piece of My Heart from director Mini Kerti, a colour-filled and spirit-lifting portrait of singer and composer Dona Onete who, in her seventies, emerged as Brazil’s “Queen of Carimbó.”

Persister amplifies the voices of strong, inspirational women who are speaking up and being heard, including the world premieres of director Nance Ackerman’s The Delivery Line, which brings into sharp focus the gravity of the extraordinary and lifesaving work of fearless midwives who risk everything to help mothers in dangerous circumstances, and director Katia Café-Fébrissy INDIVISUM: Legacies Adrift, in which a Canadian filmmaker returns to her ancestral home of Guadeloupe to discover families torn apart over land inheritance.

The new Digital Witnesses program features stories of tech and surveillance and includes the international premieres of Ghost in the Machine by director Valerie Veatch, an interrogation of who builds AI, who benefits from it and who bears the cost of a technology that continues to surround us, and Virtual Girlfriends by director Barbora Chalupová, in which three women—navigating careers as sexual-content creators on OnlyFans—reveal the tantalizing, transactional and ultimately fragile dynamics of digital intimacy.

Artscapes features creative minds, artistic pursuits and inventive filmmaking, and includes the world premiere of This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino from director Barry Avrich, in which the longest serving Artistic Director of the iconic Stratford Festival, Antoni Cimolino, prepares for his final season while reflecting on the 40 years he’s devoted to the theatrical repertory company. Receiving its international premiere is Gealtra from director Brendan Canty, in which teenagers on the north side of Cork grow from shy beginners into viral sensations as they write and perform infectious Irish-language rap.

Hot Docs will present a selection of 35 Canadian and international short films from 21 countries across various programs and as part of the Festival’s four curated Shorts Programs.

The festival will close with a free encore screening where the winner of this year’s Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary will be announced.