Hot Docs has unveiled the lineup for the Toronto documentary festival's 32nd edition, running from April 24 to May 4 this year, with the world premiere of Winnipeg director Noam Gonick's Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance, a film about milestones of the 2SLGBTQIA+ movement in Canada, opening the event.
The 32nd edition of the long-running festival will feature 113 films from 47 countries. This will include 35 world premieres, 14 international premieres and 26 North American premieres.
Music-focused films include Queer as Punk (about the trans-fronted Muslim punk band Shh…Diam! from Kuala Lumpur), The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés (about the titular Spanish musician), Selena y Los Dinos (about late Tejano superstar Selena) and Ai Weiwei's Turandot (a protest of totalitarianism in the form of staging Puccini's opera Turandot).
Hot Docs Director of Programming Heather Haynes said in a statement, "Both the documentary landscape and the world of film festivals have been faced with new challenges and so much change over the past few years, and despite all of this, our community has found a way to keep moving forward. We're honoured to be able to continue to share the powerful work and talent of filmmakers from Canada and around the world with Toronto's dedicated film-loving audiences. Documentary filmmaking has always played a significant role in expanding on the stories shared in headlines, and in times such as this, when there is so much consistent change and uncertainty both here at home and globally, that expansion is perhaps needed now more than ever."
Programs at this year's festival include Special Presentations (high-profile films and notable subjects), Made in Exile (docs from people driven from their homelands by strife), World Showcase (globe-spanning films), Persister (highlighting inspirational women), Artscapes (for innovative artists and filmmaking), Tipping Point (urgent accounts of key social and political issues) and Nightvision (predicting the next wave of cult classics), plus a Shorts Program, and the the competitive Canadian Spectrum Competition and International Spectrum Competition.
Find full details over at Hot Docs' website. Tickets, packages and passes are on sale now.