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Hot Docs, North America’s leading documentary festival, will open with the world premiere of “Parade: Queer Acts of Love & Resistance,” directed by Canadian filmmaker Noam Gonick. The documentary explores the pivotal moments that sparked Canada’s 2Slgbtq+ movement.

The festival’s 32nd edition, which runs from April 24 to May 4 in Toronto, has revealed a lineup that includes 35 world premieres, 14 international premieres, and 26 North American premieres. The lineup has 113 films from 47 countries, drawn from 2,662 submissions.

The International Spectrum Competition, all world premieres, includes “Heritage,” a family snapshot in which two siblings alternate shifts caring for their elderly parents; “I Dreamed His Name,” which follows the filmmaker and her sister on a journey of discovery across Colombia’s painful history, 30 years after their Afro-Colombian father’s forced disappearance; “I, Poppy,” which follows a son’s fight against corrupt officials while his mother tends their poppy farm in India; “King Matt the First,...

Elegance Bratton’s “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” will open the 10th edition of Chicago’s Doc10 documentary film festival on April 30.

The doc, which premiered at Sundance 2025, charts the rise of house music. The film recounts how the Disco Sucks movement led to the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, which resulted in thousands of people throwing records, mostly by Black artists, into a bonfire. The doc highlights Vince Lawrence, who was working as an usher at Demolition Night. Lawrence reveals how the event led him to become one of the founding innovators of house music.

Doc10, a five-day fest running April 30-May 4, will feature a selection of 11 of the past year’s most acclaimed feature documentaries. They include Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim and Nyle Dimarco’s recent SXSW audience award winner “Deaf President Now!” and Elizabeth Lo’s “Mistress Dispeller,” which premiered at...

The 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival has unveiled its coveted Audience Award winners.

After IndieWire announced the festival’s Jury Awards, with Amy Wang’s “Slanted” taking the top Narrative Feature Award, the Audience Awards have been totaled. “The Accountant 2” starring Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal has won the Headliner section, with “Fantasy Life” getting the Narrative Feature Competition vote. (Amanda Peet also previously won the Special Jury Award for her performance in “Fantasy Life.”)

Jay Duplass’ “The Baltimorons” received the Audience Award for the Narrative Spotlight section. Documentaries “Remaining Native” and “Luv Ya, Bum!” were also recognized in the Documentary Feature Competition and Documentary Spotlight categories, respectively. Rodney Ascher’s “Ghost Boy” was also a winners in the Visions category.

Audience Award winners were certified by Maxwell Locke & Ritter Llp.

“Our deepest thanks to the filmmakers, audiences, and volunteers who made this year’s SXSW Film & TV Festival exceptional,...

The 27th edition of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, launching on April 3, will feature a lineup of 34 feature documentaries and 15 short docs. The Durham, N.C.-based, four-day doc film fest will kick off with Lindsay Utz and Michelle Walshe’s “Prime Minister, “about the life of former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

“Prime Minister” debuted at Sundance 2025, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award. The film is one of 16 Sundance feature docs screening at Full Frame this year. Others include U.S. Grand Jury Prize winner “Seeds,” “The Librarians,” “Preditors, “Nat. Geo’s “Sally” and “The Perfect Neighbor,” which Netflix recently acquired.

Often referred to as “a filmmaker’s festival,” Full Frame is not a premiere or market-focused fest. Instead, it’s known within the doc industry as a well-organized, intimate gathering that gives well-received docs out of Sundance, Camden Intl. Film Festival and the...

Exclusive: AppleTV+ has set a premiere date of May 16 for the Nyle Dimarco and Davis Guggenheim directed feature documentary, Deaf President Now!

The pic world premiered at Sundance and is currently playing at SXSW.

Deaf President Now! follows “the greatest civil rights movement most people have never heard of” per its blurb. During eight tumultuous days in 1988 at the world’s only Deaf university, four students must find a way to lead an angry mob to change the course of history.

Dimarco told Deadline’s Matt Carey at Sundance, “The Deaf President Now protest was a part of a much larger movement that was very much spurred by the actions of the deaf community in placing a deaf president as the head of Gallaudet. Not only did we succeed, but this protest, in fact, gave rise to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects so many of...

Hot Docs, North America’s leading documentary festival, has unveiled the first slate of films to screen as part of its Special Presentations program. Subjects include Oscar-winning actor Marlee Matlin, Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist and co-founder of Bellingcat, Israeli comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi, and Silas Malafaia, Brazil’s most prominent televangelist, in the latest film from Petra Costa, Oscar-nominated for “The Edge of Democracy.”

Chase Joynt and Julietta Singh’s “The Nest,” described as a “deeply personal exploration of memory, identity and intergenerational storytelling,” makes its world premiere.

International premieres include “Deaf President Now!,” a chronicle of the landmark student protest that transformed accessibility rights in the U.S.; and “Life After,” in which filmmaker Reid Davenport investigates the troubling implications of assisted suicide laws for disabled people.

Making their Canadian premieres are “Antidote,” a real-life thriller following investigative journalist Christo Grozev, co-founder of Bellingcat, and political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza...

Exclusive: Veteran producer and film executive Jonathan King is joining Zhang Xin at Closer Media in the newly created role of president. With 25 years of experience developing and producing award-winning films, King brings a background shepherding narrative and documentary storytelling to the company’s portfolio.

Launched in 2021 by billionaire entrepreneur Zhang Xin and most recently run by William Horberg, the production and finance company has been growing quickly in the independent space and is leaning more into its narrative side. King’s resume included a slate of more than 50 films over his years at Concordia Studio, Participant, Focus Features and Miramax Films.

Coming in 2025 for Closer Media are Justin Lin’s Last Days, and Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s documentary Middletown, both of which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. New titles this year include Oliver Hermanus’ The History of Sound, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Conner, recently...

Fresh from winning the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at Sundance, Seeds will germinate at True/False, the acclaimed documentary festival in Columbia, Mo. Brittany Shyne’s film, exploring the experience of Black farmers who till the soil in the South, bows on the festival’s opening night on Thursday, with additional screenings on Friday and on Sunday, the closing night of True/False.

“Seeds is such a beautiful film. It’s one of my absolute favorites in the lineup,” notes True/False Artistic Director Chloé Trayner. “I know I’m not meant to have favorites, but it’s just pure cinema.”

Long before the documentary’s premiere, it earned support from True/False. “Seeds was a part of our Rough Cut Retreat, which we run in partnership with Catapult Film Fund. And so Brittany brought the project to the retreat along with her editor Malika [Zouhali-Worrall], and we spent five days together,...

SXSW announced the rest of its 2025 film and television lineup on Wednesday, including the world premiere of Jillian Bell's directorial debut Summer Of '69. It was also announced that the festival will feature the U.S. premiere of On Swift Horses, directed by Daniel Minahan. The film stars Jacob Elordi...

Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley in ‘Come See Me in the Good Light, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brandon Somerhalder)

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival wrapped up with the announcement of the Festival Favorite Award. The documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, directed by Ryan White, was voted by audiences as the best of the feature films screened at the 2025 festival.

“Throughout the Festival we saw audiences moved by Andrea Gibson’s and Megan Falley’s journeys in Come See Me in the Good Light. Festival goers embraced the humor and heartbreak of this intimate documentary directed by Ryan White, as it speaks to art and love and reminds us what it means to be alive as we face mortality,” stated Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming.

As the 2025 festival comes to a close, the Sundance Institute announced...

With 2025’s Sundance Film Festival wrapping up, the Institute responsible for the yearly indie forum is already cooking up plans for next year’s gathering. Dates have been set, with in-person events in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, stretching from January 22 to February 1, 2026.

In a statement shared with IndieWire, Acting CEO of Sundance Institute Amanda Kelso said, “The past 11 days of the Festival have been a meaningful opportunity to connect as a community in support of independent storytelling. We look forward to being reunited with audiences, artists, industry, and press next January for another edition of the Festival.”

Adding his excitement, Director of Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming Eugene Hernandez said, “As this year’s Festival comes to a close, we’re already looking ahead to 2026 and what will no doubt be an unforgettable experience! We invite you to save the date and get ready to join...

A couple of weeks back, apropos of nothing, a small cadre in the cesspool formerly known as Twitter decided that the most important cultural irritant of the moment was the rise of visible Asl interpreters at press conferences and public events.

It was a brief moment of directionless outrage that offered a reminder of how eager some people are to marginalize even small traces of accommodation and to erase even incremental traces of progress.

Look no further than Nyle Dimarco and Davis Guggenheim’s new Apple documentary Deaf President Now! for an efficient and inspiring primer on how hard-won and important that progress truly was and still is.

A fine entry in the generally prolific “Birth of a Movement” documentary genre, Deaf President Now! illustrates what is and was distinctive about the Deaf rights movement, but also the elements that connect it to many recent campaigns for visibility and recognition.

In her documentary “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” the star continues to explore the at times lonesome space she has occupied since bursting on the scene in 1986: that of being a representative for deaf people, and being herself. For more than three decades, Matlin was the only deaf performer to have won an Oscar, and among the few to have what could be considered a mainstream acting career. That changed when Troy Kotsur, her co-star in the 2021 Oscar-winning drama “Coda,” took home the prize for best supporting actor.

At 19, Matlin was cast opposite William Hurt in the adaptation of the play “Children of a Lesser God.” She portrayed Sarah Norman, a janitor in a school for the deaf. Hurt’s character is a speech teacher. She resists speaking. He says he won’t push her to speak but then does. After production, Hurt became Matlin’s romantic partner. So,...

As people begin to assess what they lost in the Los Angeles wildfires, producer Amanda Rohlke and production designer and art director Amelia Steely are encouraging industry colleagues to share images with property owners to help with insurance claims and offer sentimental value.

The idea came to Rohlke and Steely on Monday when they were texting with a friend whose family lost their house in the Palisades. Rohlke suddenly remembered she had shot a film at the house in 2013 and that the crew took lots of photos. She contacted the art department from the shoot to try to find the photos, and when Rohlke updated her friends, Steely realized she too had photos from various locations.

“It occurred to me, wow, there are all these resources that homeowners may not know about,” Steely said. “Often the homeowner’s absent and doesn’t know that somebody has taken hundreds of photos of their home.