#Hot Docs 2020
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth D. Costa – “Bangla Surf Girls”
An alumna of the IDFA academy and former participant in the Chicken and Egg Accelerator Lab, Elizabeth D. Costa has over eight years of experience working on media projects as producer, director,...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Pippa Ehrlich – “My Octopus Teacher”
Pippa Ehrlich is a natural history filmmaker and award-winning environmental journalist, specializing in the field of marine science and conservation. Ehrlich has worked with some of the world’s...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Laura Gabbert – “Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles”
Laura Gabbert feature documentary credits include” “No Impact Man,” “Sunset Story,” and “City of Gold.” In 2017, she was a director on the Netflix show...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Chris J. Russo – “Lady Buds”
Chris J. Russo is a director whose work aims to give visibility to women in underrepresented communities in order to portray them in the power and equality they deserve. Her award-winning short films...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Asia Dér and Sári Haragonics – “Her Mothers”
Asia Dér graduated as a documentary director from the DOC Nomads MA program. Her graduation film was nominated for the best short film at the Hungarian Film Festival. She is working on her second...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Iryna Tsilyk – “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange”
Iryna Tsilyk is a Ukrainian film director and writer. “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange” marks her debut feature-length documentary film and has won a directing award at Sundance and two...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Ying Wang – “The World is Bright”
As a migrant navigating between multiple cultures, Ying Wang is fascinated by stories that reveal the geopolitical complexity of global migration. Inspired by her sister’s experiences, Wang wrote...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Judith Helfand – “Love & Stuff”
Peabody award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand tackles some of the most pressing issues of our time — from the climate crisis and systemic inequality to love, grief, and the transformative...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Priscila Padilla – “Breaking the Silence”
Priscila Padilla is a Colombian documentarist and scriptwriter. With over 20 years of experience in the documentary field, her film work has always revolved around women’s issues and stories...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Andrea Testa – “Mother-Child”
Andrea Testa is an Argentinian-born filmmaker. She made her feature documentary debut with 2016’s “Pibe Chorro.” Her 2016 feature film “The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis,” co-directed...
Exclusive: A Biologist Learns About Her Own Body in a Clip of “The Dilemma of Desire”
Can you draw a clitoris? Our exclusive clip of “Maria Finitzo’s” “The Dilemma of Desire” poses this important question. An exploration of female sexual desire that aims to...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Maytorena Taylor – “For the Love of Rutland”
Jennifer Maytorena Taylor’s work has shown at venues like the Sundance, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Locarno Film Festivals, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, and the New York...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Sharon Liese – “Transhood”
Before completing “Pink Collar Crimes,” a true crime series for CBS, Sharon Liese’s short documentary “Fight for the First” premiered at Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth St. Philip – “9/11 Kids”
Elizabeth St. Philip is a senior producer at CTV where she has traveled the globe covering a host of stories for both national news and the investigative show “W5.” She has a deep...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Nathalie Bibeau – “The Walrus and the Whistleblower”
Nathalie Bibeau is a director and producer of international award-winning productions. She began her career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, producing documentary projects such as “8th...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Cecilia Aldarondo – “Landfall”
Cecilia Aldarondo is a documentary director and producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who makes films at the intersection of poetry and politics. Her work has been supported by ITVS, HBO, A&E,...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Deepti Gupta – “Shut Up Sona”
Deepti Gupta is a filmmaker and director of photography living in Mumbai, India. An alumna of the Film & TV Institute of India, she has shot many documentaries, narrative feature films, and music...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Stefanía Thors – “The School of Housewives”
Stefanía Thors is a filmmaker from Reykjavík, Iceland. She studied theater in Prague, and graduated with a masters from the Academy of Performing Arts. While studying, Thors worked as an assistant...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Maeve O’Boyle, Lucy Kennedy, and Aideen Kane – “The 8th”
Maeve O’Boyle is an Emmy-award winning editor and producer. She edited HBO’s “The Education of Mohammad Hussein,” which was shortlisted for an Academy Award. She co-produced and...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Diana Neille – “Influence”
Diana Neille is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker from Johannesburg, South Africa. Neille co-founded two media startups with the intention of fostering long-form investigative storytelling...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Suzanne Crocker – “First We Eat”
Suzanne Crocker’s first feature, “POV” documentary “All the Time in the World,” won 22 festival awards from around the world including nine audience choice awards, four...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Lulu Wei – “There’s No Place Like This Place, Anyplace”
Lulu Wei is a Toronto based filmmaker and cinematographer whose work explores themes of urbanization and cultural identity. Wei’s short films and installations have been screened and exhibited...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Mia Donovan – “Dope is Death”
Mia Donovan is an award-winning filmmaker based in Montreal. She was the recipient of the prestigious Don Haig Award for outstanding achievement as an emerging filmmaker in 2012. Her films have been...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Maria Finitzo – “The Dilemma of Desire”
Maria Finitzo is a two-time Peabody Award-winning social issue documentary filmmaker. She has been producing and directing documentary films for network television, public broadcasting, cable TV, and...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Liz Marshall – “Meat the Future”
Liz Marshall is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker. Since the 1990s, she has written, produced, directed, and filmed diverse international and socially conscious documentaries. Marshall’s...
Hot Docs Shorts Spotlight: Projects Featuring Protests, Aquaculture Magicians, & More
Women and Hollywood has already spotlighted some of our most anticipated women-driven and -directed features at Hot Docs in our preview, and now we’re turning our attention to the fest’s...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Ali Weinstein – “#BLESSED”
Ali Weinstein is a documentary director and producer based in Toronto. Her directorial debut “Mermaids,” about a group of women who strongly identify with the powerful aquatic archetype,...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Yoruba Richen – “The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show”
Yoruba Richen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine’s The Cut, The Atlantic, and Field of...
Hot Docs 2020 Preview: LGBTQ Parents, Surfer Girls, & More
Originally scheduled to take place April 30-May 10 in Toronto, Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival didn’t go as planned this year. The physical version of the fest was cancelled due...
Editor to Watch: Carla Gutierrez of “RBG” and “Chavela”
Film editing is a behemoth of a task, especially when it comes to documentaries. Sifting through decades of archival footage, juxtaposing them with recent interviews in a way that makes an impact,...
Hot Docs Announces 2020 Program, 51 Percent of Directors Are Women
Originally slated to take place April 30-May 10 in Toronto, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fest is still looking for ways to...