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IDA Grantees & Members at Hot Docs 2025

By Catalina Combs

Film still from 'Writing Hawa' featuring two women - one with a book in hand, the other writing on a whiteboard.

Film still from Writing Hawa

Congratulations to the 5 IDA grantee projects and 21 IDA members who will have premieres at Hot Docs 2025. Each year, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival—North America's largest doc festival, conference, and market—presents cutting-edge films from around the world. The 32nd annual Hot Docs Festival will take place April 24 to May 4, 2025, in Toronto.
 

Let's take a look at IDA grantee projects premiering at Hot Docs this year!
 

Always

A person squating in a field, looking through binoculars.
Film still from Always.

Director: Deming Chen | Producer: Hansen Lin (IDA Member) | 2023 Supported Artist

In a small village in southern China, left-behind children bravely use written word to express their internal worlds. One such child, Gong, uses poetry to bid farewell to the mother who abandoned him at birth and the fleeting days of his youth. - North American Premiere. See screening times here.

Apocalypse in the Tropics

People praying in a group with their hands held out or up.

Film still from Apocalypse in the Tropics.

Director: Petra Costa | Producers: Petra Costa & Alessandra Orofino | 2023 Enterprise Documentary Fund

Over the last 40 years, Brazil has seen unprecedented growth in the evangelical faith, from a meager 5% to a significant 30% of its population. This increase has seen the church mobilized opportunistically as a tool and a political platform for spouting far-right propaganda. At the helm is Silas Malafaia, who has been infiltrating Brazilians’ television sets for over 30 years and spreading vitriol in opposition to homosexuality, reproductive justice, and Indigenous rights—all the while acting as a central advisor to former president Jair Bolsonaro. Apocalypse in the Tropics boasts remarkable access to Malafaia, Bolsonaro, and President Lula as Costa delivers a meditation on the historically intertwined relationship between church and state in Brazil that culminates in the large-scale occupation of the national congress and attempted coup on January 8, 2023. - Special Presentation and Canadian Premiere. See screening times here. 

Life After 

People protesting. In front is a Black disabled man. Behind him is a hot pink banner with black text that reads 'Not Dead. We want to live!'

Film still from Life After.

Director: Reid Davenport | Producer(s): Colleen Cassingham | 2023 Enterprise Documentary Fund

Life After interrogates the contradictory political ideologies surrounding death and disability while coalescing the missing voices of the disabled community in the contemporary debate around medically assisted suicide. - Special Presentation and International Premiere. See screening times here. 

Queer As Punk

A band playing on a stage.

Film still from Queer As Punk. 

Director: Yihwen Chen (IDA Member) | Producer(s): Yihwen Chen, Mandy Marahimin | 2024 Pare Lorentz

Brash, defiant and wickedly funny, punk rockers Shh…Diam! are an underground sensation in Kuala Lumpur. An all-queer band led by charismatic trans man Farris Saad, they’ve won devoted fans with playful anthems like “I Woke Up Gay” and “Lonely Lesbian.” Filming over six years, director Yihwen Chen follows them to practices, gigs, and protests, capturing their irreverent advocacy amid a spate of anti-LGBTQ raids and arrests as well as major developments in their personal lives and relationships. - North American Premiere. See screening times here. 

 Writing Hawa

A woman sitting on steps looking out into a courtyard.

Film still from Writing Hawa. 

Director(s): Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori | Producer(s): Christian Popp, Hasse van Nunen, Renko Douze | Writer(s): Najiba Noori, Afsaneh Salari | 2023 Enterprise Documentary Fund

40 YEARS after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa is eager to finally begin an independent life and to be literate. However, with the return of the Taliban to power her dreams, and those of her daughter and grand-daughter are shattered. - Canadian Premiere. See screening times here. 

 

We're not done! Congratulations to these IDA Members with films premiering at Hot Docs!

Credits below are IDA Members

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