Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary film festival, conference, and market, held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 2012 edition of the Festival ran from April 26 to May 6, and had a record attendance of 165,000 featuring 189 films from 54 countries.

The Hot Docs festival was started in 1993 by the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, now the Documentary Organization of Canada, a national association of independent documentary filmmakers. The Founding Chair of Hot Docs! was filmmaker Paul Jay. Much of the festival's success can be credited to the logistical support rendered by scores of volunteers every year.

Each year the festival screens more than 170 documentaries from all around the world. Along with the Canadian and international competitive programs, the festival features The Doc Shop – an international documentary market and the Toronto Documentary Forum. The festival has been instrumental as the documentary industry’s meeting place with more than 2000 delegates attending it. These delegates include the commissioning editors, programers, filmmakers, buyers and distributors from all over the world. Hot Docs is also home to the famous Toronto Documentary Forum (TDF), a limited-seat event which was launched in the year 2000. Since then, TDF has established itself as North America’s essential international documentary market event.

Venues for the 2012 event included the newly renovated and documentary-focused Bloor Cinema, Innis Town Hall, part of the University of Toronto's Innis College, the Isabel Bader Theatre, part of the University of Toronto's Victoria College, the ROM Theatre, the Royal Cinema, the Cumberland Cinemas, the Revue, the Regent, the Fox Theatre and TIFF Bell Lightbox.