Films

Official Selection 2026
Selected from submissions across 28 countries

Screening one night only at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on June 5.

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Legend

Ryan Patterson

Canada

In a fading world, an aging guardian teaches a young man to follow in his mother’s footsteps.

Grandmère

Martin Haerlin

Germany

Grandmère was inspired by my own childhood memories, my grandmother’s house, and the small “ghosts” of imagination that shaped me, and that quietly disappeared as I grew older.

Memento Mori

Mike Bennion

United States

A short film about loss.

Soar!

Richard Murray

Canada

Two kids - a future pilot and drone-flying bully - learn that just maybe they're better when they soar together.

Dial-A-Mate

Catherine Hang-Hicks

United States

A stop-motion style comedy riff on 80's video dating programs, with animals.

The Stars

Afro Futcha

United Kingdom

In a war-torn city where the night sky is filled with falling fire, a young boy collects what he believes are stars in a glass jar, making quiet wishes and trying to stop them from ever falling again—unaware that the beauty he’s chasing is the very violence surrounding him.

When is it yours?

Ben Chimoy

Germany

When Is It Yours? is a short mockumentary about authorship, ownership, and creative intent in the age of generative AI.

Don’t Feed the Rats

Tiziano Fioriti

Italy

What you run from runs after you. Every fear you avoid learns how to chase you.

Céremony

Mark Wachholz

Germany

In a near-future where perception of minors in distress is heavily filtered, the only survivor of a city erased in an apocalyptic strike, a 12-year-old girl, is interviewed to tell the world what happened. But she holds the key to a darker truth about children in our society.

Hard Dayzzz

Max De Donato

France

Hard Dayzzz follows the journey of a fly thrown into a series of trials. Each threat forces it to question its place in a universe that seems determined to erase it.

Egg

C.E. Whitmore

United States

Harold, Luce, and Harley are three needle-felted meerkats who agree on almost nothing — especially not the glowing egg half-buried outside their burrow.

When I became Me

Gary Thomas

Canada

A drone discovers what it is to be unique.

The sea that dreamed

Roxanne Ducharme

Canada

Adrift in a strange sea, a creature wanders until a forgotten jar reveals a hidden world within.

Loop & Gavel

Michael James Pearson

Canada

An experimental super-intelligent android navigates the birth of conciousness and it’s relationship to humanity.

Sinuca de Bico (Cornered)

Odair Faléco and Davi Moori

Brazil

Based on real life events, Sinuca de Bico is a raw, personal short about the quiet violence of work

Hard to be a God

DT Yang

Taiwan, United States

Set in near-future Taiwan, a young woman copes with her mother’s death and the looming threat of invasion by escaping into a digital world.