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Crowd at Hot Docs Forum
Photo by Joseph Michael Howarth
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Hot Docs Forum

At the 2024 Festival, 19 Forum projects representing 18 countries and 21 filmmakers, 15 of whom are women and 11 of whom are BIPOC, will pitch to international decision makers.

A huge thank you to Hot Docs Forum producer Dorota Lech and to this year’s Selection Committee: Yoko Imai, Jeff Seelbach, and Abby Sun.

ANATOMY OF A LIFE
Production Company: Anatomy of a Life LLC (USA)
Director: Emma Francis-Snyder
Producers: Tiffany Fisher Love
Anatomy of a Life is a hybrid film that explores the end of life, as imagined by the dying and as experienced by the ones they are leaving behind.

ARREST THE MIDWIFE (WT)
Production Company: Underdog Films, Inc. (USA)
Director: Elaine Epstein
Producers: Elaine Epstein, Robin Hessman, Ruth Ann Harnisch
The arrest of three midwives serving Amish and Mennonite communities spurs an unlikely group of activists to join the fight for reproductive rights.

AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH
Production Companies: Piraya Film AS (Norway), Little Big Story (France), IV Films (Finland), Nukleus Film (Croatia)
Director: Anna Bogoliubova
Producers: Torstein Grude Ruwê Yuxinawá, Oddleiv Vik, Raphael Pëlissou, Valérie Montmartin, Iikka Vehkalahti, Sinisa Juricic
A documentary dystopia that explores the survival strategies of people who live inside the modern Russian dictatorship which itself has become a formidable force of mass murder.

BA’S BOOK
Production Company: Intuitive Pictures Inc. (Canada)
Director: Ashley Da-Lê Duong
Producer: Ina Fichman
As a father writes a memoir to his daughter about his harrowing experiences of both the Vietnam War and the Iranian Revolution, the daughter responds by making a film. Through their creative dialogue, this hybrid documentary offers a disarming look at the legacy of war.

IMAGO
Production Companies: Triptyque Films SARL (France), Need Productions SPRL (Belgium)
Director: Déni Oumar Pitsaev
Producers: Alexandra Mélot, Anne-Laure Guégan, Géraldine Sprimont
I was offered land in Pankisi, Georgia, on the other side of Chechnya, my homeland. I contemplate building a house in this secluded region, known as the "Jihadists' valley."

JARIPEO
Production Companies: Jaripeo Documentary LLC (USA), BHD Films (Mexico)
Directors: Rebecca Zweig, Efraín Mojica
Producers: Sarah Strunin, Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
At the rural rodeos in Michoacán, México, a hypermasculine tradition is rife with hidden queer encounters. Guided by director Efraín, Jaripeo follows two rancheros as they navigate desire, machismo, and mass migration from one rodeo season to the next.

LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY
Production Companies: Space Time Films LLC (USA), Meerkat Media LLC (USA)
Director: Leah Galant
Producer: Elijah Stevens
Who do our memories belong to? Weaving personal essay and intimate character studies, Landscapes of Memory explores the weaponization of Holocaust memory, and those fighting against it.

POWER & LIGHT
Production Company: Actual Films (USA)
Director: Kelly Duane de la Vega
Producers: Jessica Anthony, Justine Nagan, Jon Shenk
In Miami, Power & Light follows two journalists embroiled in a top-secret investigation exposing how the state’s largest utility ruthlessly undermined democracy and stalled climate action to protect profits.

POWER, ELAINE (WT)
Production Companies: Poppy Pictures doo (Serbia), Survivance (France)
Director: Mila Turajlić
Producers: Mila Turajlić, Carine Chichkowsky
Tracing more than half a century of the rise and fall of progressive struggle, Elaine Mokhtefi revisits her days of radical activism across the Third World in this memoir documentary.

PÜLÖ; BLOODSTREAM OF THE KIRIKE
Production Companies: IMBUU Media Limited (Nigeria), Ethnos Snc (Italy)
Director: Christina Ifubaraboye
Producers: Christina Ifubaraboye, Ufuoma Ogagarue, Olawale Ogundein, Elisa Mereghetti, Yvonne Welbon
Pülö means blood and oil. Oil is the blood of Kirike, it keeps the people going. Blood is the stream of life, what happens when this stream is poisoned? The Kirike people, who rely on the island’s water, are under threat!

RECKONING
Production Companies: Insight Film Ltd. (UK), Come on Die Young Films (Brazil)
Director: Mauricio Monteiro Filho
Producers: Charlie Rosser, Clive Patterson, Hugh Davies, Mauricio Monteiro Filho
Reckoning follows a Brazilian federal prosecutor as he leads a landmark investigation into crimes against humanity, perpetrated by the previous Bolsonaro government against the Yanomami people of the northern Amazon.

REHEARSING FOR JUSTICE
Production Companies: Integral film og Litteratur as (Norway), Sirdab Studio Ltd (Palestine)
Director: Dalia Al-Kury
Producers: Ola K. Hunnes, Jørgen Lorentzen, Nefise Lorentzen
What is at stake when one Palestinian filmmaker from the diaspora takes on the challenge of imagining justice and reparations in a free Palestine?

TEA WITH THE TALIBAN
Production Companies: Faction Films Ltd. (UK), Nadcon GmbH (Germany)
Director: Ovidio Salazar
Producers: Rishi Ghosh-Curling, Peter Nadermann, Petra Wersch, Sylvia Stevens, Peter Day
As Taliban leaders strive to rebuild Afghanistan in their own image, pulled between the demands of The West and their own ideology, pressures mount on the ground for the people.

THERE’S ONLY ONE SHIRLEY
Production Company: That Girl Productions LLC (USA)
Director: Isadora Kosofsky
Producers: Isadora Kosofsky, Amanda Mustard
After three difficult marriages, inimitable octogenarian Shirley engages in internet dating and pursues a successful career in the porn industry. In this ten-year portrait, Shirley defies all conventions on her quest to find the love and meaning she has searched for her entire life.

THIS LAND OF OURS
Production Company: Oya Media Group Inc. (Canada)
Director: Ngardy Conteh George
Producers: Ngardy Conteh George, Alison Duke
The cost of paradise, but for whom?

UNDER THE FLAGS, THE SUN
Production Companies: Cine Mio / Ivana Urízar (Paraguay), MaravillaCine S.R.L. (Argentina), Sabaté Films S.R.L. (Paraguay), Juanjo Pereira (Paraguay)
Director: Juanjo Pereira
Producers: Paula Zyngierman, Ivana Urízar, Gabriela Sabaté, Leandro Listorti, Juanjo Pereira
Using film material found around the world, Under the Flags, the Sun reconstructs Paraguay's untold history, delving into Alfredo Stroessner's dictatorship—among Latin America's longest—with traces still felt today.

UNFILTERED
Production Companies: Intensity Films LLC (USA), Himaphiliac CineLabs LLC (USA), Tell It Media INC (USA)
Director: Chelsi Bullard
Producers: Chelsi Bullard, Hima B., Jacqueline Olive
Generational trauma and unflinching courage collide in Unfiltered, a raw yet joyous coming-of-age story, where 15-year-old Tamia McArthur is determined to disrupt family cycles and reclaim her youth in a world that forces Black girls to grow up too soon.

#WHILEBLACK
Production Companies: Fathom Film Group Ltd. (Canada), WhileBlackFilm LLC (US)
Directors: Jennifer Holness, Sidney Fussell
Producers: Ann Shin, Geeta Gandbhir, Tara Jan
Darnella Frazier, who filmed the death of George Floyd, steps forward in this ground-breaking documentary about viral videos that have ignited global movements. We hear the firsthand stories of Darnella and other citizen journalists as we dive deep into the technology platforms that deliver and profit from these images.

WHO MOVES AMERICA (WT)
Production Company: Sidereal Time LLC (USA)
Director: Yael Bridge
Producers: Yael Bridge, Jeremy Flood, Yoni Golijov, Mars Verrone
Weaving together intimate character-driven verité and essayistic narration, Who Moves America elucidates the theory and practice of solidarity through the organizing efforts of the Teamsters labor union.

The Hot Docs Forum wishes to thank 2024 Presenting Forum Partner Canada Media Fund and Founding Partner Telefilm Canada. The Hot Docs Forum receives additional support from Banff World Media Festival, Blue Ice Pictures, C21 Media, Canadian Media Producers Association, CBC, European Film Promotion, Front Row Insurance, Gardiner Roberts LLP, Italian Trade Commission, National Film Board of Canada, Netflix, Ontario Creates, Playback, Realscreen, Rogers, Scotia Wealth Management, SODEC, the City of Toronto, and Variety.

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