DocNow Festival

05/10/2023

Check out this fun interview with director Derek Sands! He speaks about his project "Ancestors' Dreams." This short doc is about a group of indigenous college students that go on a journey to reconnect to their culture, which leads them to experience the once almost extinct Ojibway Spirit Horses. Doc Now Screenings June 1-4, 6 - 9 PM at Carlton Imagine Cinemas. Video by Will Stock.

12/21/2022

There is still time to buy a 50/50 Raffle ticket to support Doc Now 2023! Live drawing Dec 22 on Instagram. Go to link, click donate, and enter 5050 in surname field. Thank you!

Donations & Sponsorships Donations & Sponsorships Sponsorship Opportunities Donate Here A note on tax receipts: Donors will receive a tax receipt. Sponsors (of all tiers) will not. Sponsors may claim their contribution as a business entertainment expense. Questions about how to donate or to learn mo...

12/09/2022

Please support Doc Now 2023 by buying a raffle ticket! Winner will be announced on Instagram Live December 22! Go to the link, click Donate, and enter 5050 in the surname field. http://www.imagearts.ryerson.ca/docnow/donation-sponsorship/

06/14/2022

Denis Romanov will be exhibiting Wonscotonach Lives from June 22nd - July 2nd, at .

Is there a place for nature in a modern post-industrial city? If so, how does it fit in with the urban environment? What does nature mean for urban citizens? Denis Romanov’s multi-media installation Wonscotonach Lives, assembled from photographs, video and sound, approaches these questions by exploring Toronto’s Don River Valley (Wonscotonach in the Anishinaabemowin/Ojibwe language) as a microcosm of ‘urban nature’ – with its inherent contradiction of simultaneously existing within the city and independent of it. As the title ambiguously hints, the project both presents the river as a living, ever-changing substance and also acknowledges the ways in which it affects the life of Toronto and its inhabitants.

06/14/2022

Sadaf Khajeh's film Bâbâjân will be screening on May 31st at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

In her film "Bâbâjân," Sadaf Khajeh tries to learn more about the life of her grandfather who she hardly knew but remembers well through family stories. Through interviews, home movies, and exploring places and objects that evoke sensory memory the film paints a finer picture of Bâbâjân’s life, who lived during a very significant time in Iranian contemporary history. In doing so the film also subtly highlights some underlying social issues affecting the Iranian society today.

06/01/2022

Julia Wittmann's film Housing and People Action Plan will be screening on June 2nd at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

Housing and People Action Plan: Responding to the City Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis (Regarding Encampments) is a summary of the City of Toronto’s response to the encampment crisis throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent response from housing justice advocates and members of the local unhoused community. The film is a collage of homemade animated reenactments, footage from City websites and news outlets, and on-the-ground documentary footage from protests and press conferences. The pieces are strung together by the film’s narrator Clay, an encampment resident with a perfect view of the city skyline. With irony inspired by anger, parody inspired by incredulity, and testimony firmly planted in lived experience, the film confronts the political structures and practices that perpetuate the marginalization and criminalization of homelessness, and asks audiences to listen to lived experience and support real systemic changes.

05/31/2022

Ashley Finch's film Dancing Through the Decades will be screening on June 1st at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

This film highlights stories of love and friendship at a Toronto singles’ dancing business in operation for nearly 30 years. As a child, filmmaker Ashley Finch grew up taking photos and videos at the dances, and has compiled her greatest captures from the past and caught up with the people she grew up photographing and videoing.

05/31/2022

Lakshya Dhungana's film Para Sareko - Having Moved ‘Away’ will be screening on May 31st at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.

Para Sareko is an intimate portrait of a diasporic family, two sisters and their mother share their experiences of Nepali menstrual practices. An amalgamation of views and beliefs in a family that loves to celebrate all occasions and seeks to keep their culture alive.

The phrase "Para Sareko" which directly translates to "having moved away", is used to describe menstruators in seclusion during their period. They are to stay ‘away’ from the kitchen, from holy spaces and so on.