The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest North American documentary festival, conference, and market, through which over 200 cutting-edge films from all over the world are presented annually. Hot Docs celebrates the art of documentary filmmaking through its outstanding showcases and by creating production opportunities for documentary filmmakers.
Hot Docs returns this year between April 23 and May 3, 2026. Here are eight B.C. films among its unique programming:
Still from CONCRETE TURNED TO SAND.
CONCRETE TURNED TO SAND (dir. Ryan Ermacora and Jessica Johnson)
Cortes Island is a coastal paradise in British Columbia’s Discovery Islands archipelago. Its abundant ecosystem is a breeding ground for magnificent oysters whose stone-like shells are shaped by tidal currents. These living fossils take years to reach maturity; meanwhile, their environment is changing faster than they can adapt.
Following a small group of farmers and scientists, this 35mm essay takes a deep dive into the life cycle of these seemingly sedentary organisms, using them as a gateway to understanding the aquatic impacts of ocean warming and acidification due to climate change. Navigating the tides and the moon, and embracing stillness as scenes are slowly exposed, a true sense of space and time emerges on the screen as farmers collect shells on the shore and draw up their lines on their modest vessels. Blending macro- and micro-modes of observation, this meditative exploration of small-scale aquaculture and its intersection with scientific study yields a truly immersive cinematic experience.
CONSTANT BATTLES (dir. Mackenzie Stannard)
Every moment of Nyousha Nakhjiri’s focus is trained on a singular goal: becoming the first Iranian-born female boxer to step into the ring at the Olympics. The path to achieving her dream, however, is filled with physical and mental hurdles that require strength and determination to overcome. Through boxing, she’s found a way to navigate her ADHD and anxiety and become the number-one ranked athlete in her weight class.
After she spent her childhood in Iran, Nyousha and her parents emigrated to Canada, escaping the gender-based persecution her mother Elehah knew all too well: at the age of 16, Elehah was sent to the notorious Evin Prison for her activism against the Islamic Republic. Working her way through the national qualifying bouts in a sport she’d be banned from in her motherland, Nyousha grows closer to her mother, and the two come to understand each other’s sacrifices and learn that winning can be defined in many ways in the fight for something bigger than oneself.
Still from CEREMONY. Credit: Smayaykila Films.
CEREMONY (dir. Banchi Hanuse)
After a long winter in British Columbia’s Coast Mountains, the spring flow and annual arrival of the ooligan fish was a time of celebration for the Nuxalk people. It brought the community together, providing vital nourishment and medicine. Today, only the memory of those gatherings remains. Twenty-six years ago, the ooligan did not return; its disappearance threatened traditions that had been practiced for generations. Why did the fish vanish?
More than a century after a smallpox epidemic and subsequent village displacements, the loss of the ooligan is a stark reminder of colonial harm. At a remote community radio station in the Bella Coola Valley, voices rise as Nuxalk people gather to share stories and participate in Ceremony to speak the truth of the past and reclaim their future. The broadcasts are only one part of a wider effort to re-establish their territory and restore the natural environment devastated by deforestation and other outside forces. Collectively told by the Nuxalk Nation through animation, archival documents and testimony, this chronicle of resilience and cultural survival echoes across the land.
ANTIDIVA: THE CAROLE POPE CONFESSIONS (dir. Michelle Mama)
In Toronto’s vibrant music, art and fashion scene of the 1970s and 1980s, Carole Pope made her mark with the new wave band Rough Trade, which produced bold, boundary-breaking music delivered with a sexy punk edge. “High School Confidential,” the band’s breakthrough hit, did something not many had done before: it featured an openly queer performer fearlessly expressing lesbian desire on daytime radio.
Now in her 70s, Pope continues to channel her creativity into new forms. Her latest project is a musical that draws on her life and career with Rough Trade, as well as the story of her beloved late brother Howard, himself a celebrated musician and AIDS activist. Told with refreshing candour and drawn in part from Pope’s autobiography, her story pulses with backstage seductions and on-stage swagger. Featuring interviews with celebrity friends like Peaches, k.d. Lang, Jann Arden and Rufus Wainwright, ANTIDIVa is a long overdue cinematic tribute to a fierce and talented queer maverick.
Still from IN TYEE COUNTRY.
IN TYEE COUNTRY (dir. Jevan Crittenden and Nate Slaco)
There is only one way to gain membership in the hundred-year-old Tyee Club of British Columbia. According to a very specific set of rules, one must catch a Chinook salmon that weighs at least 30 pounds. Current members take a lot of pride in the fact that you can’t buy your way in; in recent years, however, it’s become clear that, despite their stalwart efforts, fewer people are catching the elusive Tyee. As a result, the aging membership must reckon with the fact that their club may not last another decade, let alone another century. Overfishing, property development and climate change are some of the challenges facing the salmon population.
In tracing the history of this Campbell River institution, what at first glance appears to be a local story about a quirky club gives way to a much deeper understanding of the perils of clinging to tradition when faced with the inevitable facts of a rapidly changing world.
SEARCHING FOR DRUG PEACE (dir. Alisher Balfanbayev)
The opioid crisis in Canada remains a major public health emergency, and Vancouver one of its epicentres. This nation-wide catastrophe is driven in large part by a toxic, unpredictable illegal drug supply. For activist and businessperson Dana Larsen, the persistence of the crisis is evidence that criminalization of drug use isn’t working. He has been advocating to end the War on Drugs and permanently change how Canada treats illicit substances and those who use them. On Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, he operates the Coca Leaf Café and Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary to both provide safe drugs and to fund Get Your Drugs Tested, a free drug-testing centre. Now, with his business licence revoked and the testing centre unexpectedly shuttered, he must convince Vancouver City Council to allow him to resume operations.
A film that challenges your beliefs and morals, asking what actionable solutions can be implemented to stem the tide of the thousands dying on Canada’s streets due to an unsafe drug supply.
Still from TUKTUIT: CARIBOU. Credit: Sundance Institute.
TUKTUIT : CARIBOU (dir. Lindsay McIntyre)
Filmed primarily on the land in Nunavut where caribou struggle to maintain their lifeways, and created with handmade and manufactured emulsions, TUKTUIT : CARIBOU is a textured and meditative exploration of the close and enduring connections among Inuit, caribou, lichens and land use.
Corrected Long Note: What’s in a name? For the Tla’amin Nation in British Columbia, the answer is: a lot. For them, language is intertwined with landscape and names are a foundational part of a connection to the land. To address this, in May 2021, the Tla’amin asked the city council of Powell River—named after Israel Wood Powell, one of the architects of residential schools and the ban on the Potlatch—to change the city’s name. This puts the city and its inhabitants’ views on, and commitment to, reconciliation to the test.
Using animated Tla’amin oral storytelling, observational footage of heated community meetings, and insightful sit-down interviews, this thought-provoking film offers a discussion that should resonate with us all, as the call to rename places, landmarks and institutions is accelerating across communities.
Read the complete festival programming and buy tickets on the Hot Docs website.
