#FIRSTLOOK: HOT DOCS PRESENT JUNE 2026 PROGRAMMING INCLUDE “PRIDE PROJECTED” AND CURIOUS MINDS SERIES

The excitement of this year’s Hot Docs Festival carries on as Hot Docs Cinema releases its lineup of programming for June, bringing some extra special events and guests, returning series and Festival favourites to the historic movie theatre at 506 Bloor Street. Highlights of June’s programming include the return of Pride Projected with three Pride Month events hosted by local film lovers and makers, the four-week Curious Minds lecture series Toronto: Cinema City, and several special guests in attendance to introduce films or participate in post-screening Q&As.

Pride Projected is back with three special events hosted by some of our favourite local queer film icons. We asked Michelle Mama, Saffron Maeve and Peter Knegt for some non-fiction queer cinema of their choosing and invited them to bring it to the main stage to share with Hot Docs audiences throughout Pride Month. Critic, editor, and film curator Saffron Maeve presents Shades of Feeling: Five by Pratibha Parmar, a collection of five shorts by British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, released from 1988-1991. Hot Docs 2026 Opening Night filmmaker Michelle Mama (Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions) presents a film about another legendary queer icon (one with a curious Carole connection): Jeffrey Schwarz’s I Am Divine, the “divinative” story of John Waters’ Dreamlanders diva Divine. To open the series, writer, broadcaster and Queer Cinema Club curator Peter Knegt presents one of his all-time favourite documentaries, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s The Celluloid Closet, assembled using fabulous footage from 120 films to show the changing face of cinema sexuality. For more information on Pride Projected, presented in partnership with Inside Out, visit hotdocs.ca/whats-on/cinema-series/pride-projected

Saturdays in June, Toronto: Cinema City will welcome journalist and film historian Eric Veillette to lead us in a four-part journey through Toronto’s exhibition history, uncovering the theatres, controversies, and communities that shaped how Torontonians have watched movies for 130 years. The four-week Curious Minds course will cover decades of Toronto history, as told through the city’s movie theatres. From bustling neighbourhood cinemas and Yonge Street grindhouses, experimental film co-ops, to the corporate rise of multiplex chains and decades of censorship battles, the city’s screens have mirrored its cultural, social and political life. The series includes a further viewing screening of Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster, for which Atom Egoyan will be in attendance for a special post-screening discussion. A full series pass is now available for purchase, with special pricing for Hot Docs Members. Individual tickets may also be purchased. For more information and to purchase, visit hotdocs.ca

Joining Atom Egoyan, Peter Knegt, Saffron Maeve and Michelle Mama are additional special guests in attendance for screenings at the cinema in June. Actor and author Ben McKenzie (Gotham, Southland, The OC) will join us for both screenings of his new documentary, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, which pulls back the curtain on cryptocurrency and the culture of hype and misinformation. Psychedelics advocate Rick Doblin, Ph.D., is the Founder and President of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and is featured in Elias Varoutsos’s new documentary Prophet of Ecstasy, which explores art, politics and consciousness through the improbable life of Michael Clegg, the former Catholic priest who introduced MDMA to the world. Doblin will join us for a special post-screening Q&A. Author Myra Bloom arrives at Hot Docs Cinema for our Author Talks series to unveil Evasive Manoeuvres: Canadian Women’s Confessional Writing, in which four contemporary Canadian writers navigate both the possibilities and the perils of confession. Bloom will discuss her new book alongside Rachel Giese, culture and life editor at The Globe and Mail. Filmmaker Kristi Tethong will present her new documentary, Far from Home, in which one family and the Tibetan nation are bound together by love, courage and their fight to resist erasure. Tethong will take part in a post-screening Q&A. The cinema will also welcome a panel of to-be-announced special guests for a post-screening discussion following Damon Gameau’s Future Council, in which eight children embark on an epic adventure across Europe in a school bus powered by biofuel, on a mission to better understand the planet’s predicament, explore solutions and confront some of the world’s largest polluters.

Additional programming highlights include a Pride edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with live on-stage performances from Toronto’s own shadow cast, Excited Mental State; a relaxed screening of John Bolton’s King Arthur’s Night, a genre-defying documentary film rooted in a medieval musical play created by an extraordinary company of artists living with and without Down syndrome, that is presented in collaboration with Luminato Festival; the return of Hot Docs Festival 2026 official selection It’s Dorothy by director Jeffrey McHale, which invites audiences on a dazzling journey through Dorothy Gale’s enduring cultural legacy, tracing her profound impact on women, folks of colour, and LGBTQ+ communities; the timely return of Hot Docs Festival 2025 official selection Ultras from filmmaker Ragnhild Ekner, just in time for the World Cup, in which we meet several communities of soccer’s uber fans (known as “ultras”) across Argentina, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Italy, Morocco, Poland and Sweden; the return of the Midtown Matinees series with a 4K restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 classic To Catch a Thief, and June’s Jukedocs with curator Niko Stratis bringing what Rolling Stone calls “one of the greatest music documentaries ever made,” Peter Abraham’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco, featuring a post-screening virtual Q&A with the director.

The above films join the full line-up of screenings and events taking place this month at Hot Docs Cinema.

For more of what’s on at Hot Docs Cinema in June, visit hotdocs.ca