If taken at face value, the opening weekend of the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival proceeded as it normally would. First-year president Marie Nelson would introduce the opening film Luther: Never Too Much by referencing her prom and a packed opening night party was held at the historic El Mocambo Tavern. However, there…
Prisoners go on a mass hunger strike to protest keeping people in solitary confinement for decades in The Strike. Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit was opened in 1989 and was designed to house of the worst of the worst in solitary confinement. However, some of these prisoners, like Jack Morris, ended up spending…
A couple develops an A.I. robot in the hope that their love transcends their lives in Love Machina. Martine and Bina Rothblatt are the founders of the Teresim Movement Foundation. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s book series Earthseed, the couple hired Bruce Duncan to create a mindfile in 2006. This provided to basis for Bina48, a…
Generative AI is used to construct a documentary about electronic music artist Brian Eno in real-time with Eno. Brian Eno is best known as a founding member of Roxy Music, a creator of ambient music, and a producer of Talking Heads, U2, and Peter Gabriel. Director Gary Hustwit incorporates over 500 hours of new and…
Director Patricia Franquesa documents her own experience of being blackmailed over stolen private photos in My Sextortion Diary. While on a business trip in May 2019, Pati’s laptop was stolen while she had lunch with her ex during a business trip to Madrid. Two months later, she discovers that the laptop was hacked and that…
Lucy Lawless directs this biography of New Zealand-born CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth in Never Look Away. Margaret Moth was the first female camera operator from television in New Zealand, who began working for CNN in 1990. Beginning with coverage of Desert Storm in Kuwait, Moth approached covering war with fearlessness. Even after getting shot by…
The nearly forgotten story of one of pop music’s first black trans performers is told in Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story. In the 1960s Jackie Shane was a groundbreaking R&B star, before disappearing from the public eye in 1971. After her nieces Andrenee Majors and Vonnie Moore inherit her belongings and find her…
The provocative electro-punk artist goes on tour for the 20th anniversary of her debut album in Teaches of Peaches. Toronto-born Merrill Nisker, better known by her stage name Peaches, is preparing to go on tour to mark the 20th anniversary of her 2000 debut album “The Teaches of Peaches.” Featuring songs created using beats from…
The life and career of Luther Vandross are looked back upon in Luther: Never Too Much. Luther Vandross grew up in the Brox with a love of music and in his younger years became part of the Apollo Theatre house band Listen to My Brother, which would go on to appear on the first episodes…
With the news of the mass exodus of ten programming team members still fresh on everyone’s might, and later updated to include news of the departure of Artistic director Hussain Currimbhoy, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival announced its 2024. At the start of this morning’s Hot Docs 2024 Press Conference, the film festival’s…
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