‘Lac-Mégantic,’ About Canadian Rail Disaster, Takes Hot Docs’ Top Audience Award

Michelle Yeoh never dreamt she’d become an acclaimed Oscar-winning Hollywood star.

Bianca Andreescu took the tennis world by storm back in 2019, winning the Rogers Cup at age 19 — the first Canadian to do so in a half-century — and defeating Serena Williams to win the U.S. Open.

Canadian Music Week is set to honour Kardinal Offishall with the prestigious Social Justice Award at the CMW Music Summit on June 10, 2023, at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto.

Denise Richards is a big fan of Canada.

“The Little Mermaid” hasn’t even hit theatres yet, and fans are already asking for a spin-off series focusing on the adventures of the film’s three beloved sea creatures — Flounder the fish, Ariel’s best friend; Sebastian the crab, King Triton’s royal court composer; and Scuttle the seagull, Ariel’s friend and self-proclaimed expert on human stuff.

You can count Reba McEntire as a massive Dolly fan.

Reba McEntire wants to do her mother proud.

Going public! Charlize Theron and her new boyfriend, Alex Dimitrijevic, kept their romance under wraps before stepping out for the first time in May 2023.

EXCLUSIVE: The Wilds star Shannon Berry has joined the cast of Susanna Fogel’s Canadian feature Winner.

Naman Ramachandran The late Oscar-winning thespian Christopher Plummer delivers his final performance in animated feature “Heroes of the Golden Masks,” also starring Patton Oswalt and Ron Perlman. Inspired by the ancient bronze masks of Sanxingdui discovered on the archaeological site of Guanghan in the Sichuan Province in the late 1980s, the film centers on Charlie, a wise-cracking, homeless, American orphan who is magically transported to the ancient Chinese kingdom of Sanxingdui, where a colorful team of superheroes need his help to defend the city from a brutal conqueror. Charlie joins the heroes and secretly schemes to steal the priceless golden masks that grant them their powers.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor MAD Solutions has acquired the distribution rights to “Concrete Valley” for multiple territories. The film focuses on a Syrian family living in Toronto. The film, from Canadian-French filmmaker Antoine Bourges, premiered at Toronto Film Festival, before travelling to Berlinale, and it just screened at Jeonju. The deal covers the following territories: UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South of Sudan and Comoro Island. The writers are Bourges and Teyama Alkamli. The producer is Shehrezade Mian at Markhor Pictures.

Your favorite crew is back!

Seth Rogen truly is one of Canada’s greatest exports.

In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast host Mike DeAngelo gets to the occasional truth with Hulu’s hit period comedy series, “The Great.” Created by Tony McNamara (“The Favourite,” “Cruella”), the show follows the sometimes true rise to power and subsequent rule of Catherine “The Great” (Elle Fanning) in a chaotic and debaucherous 18th century Russia.

Coronation Street star Ellie Leach has shared her excitement over where her current storyline may go despite rumours of an exit being on the horizon. The actress is known for playing Faye Windass in the ITV soap having grown up on screen after making her cobbles debut in 2011.

Mystery woman no more. Robert De Niro has kept his relationship with Tiffany Chen under wraps since the pair were first linked in 2021.

Jennie Punter Last year, during an online panel at Hot Docs film festival featuring Ukrainian documentary filmmakers who were staying in place, Oksana Karpovych told attendees how she’d gained knowledge working alongside foreign media crews covering the war, and was now applying that to her own creative documentary projects. This year, at the festival’s 30th anniversary edition, Karpovych attended the in-person Forum market event to pitch “Intercepted” — her observational doc exploring the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — which ended up winning the 2023 CMF-Hot Docs Canadian Pitch Prize. With Ukraine in the spotlight at Hot Docs this year, both audiences and industry attendees are getting wide exposure to the films and ideas of leading Ukrainian documentary creators. The timing of this programming is perfect, said Hot Docs programmer Myrocia Watamaniuk, not only for the obvious reason.

Jennie Punter With Hot Docs’ marquee market event the Forum and its sidebar operations back to live action, and the festival’s 30th anniversary adding a layer of buzzy excitement, docmakers and industry pros from Western Canada are hauling out a bumper crop of adventurous docs for audiences and buyers, and chatting in the real world about new projects with potential Canadian and international partners and funders. Nine Western Canada-made doc features span Hot Docs’ programs, with stories that go deeper into landscapes and beyond cultural stereotypes. Kathleen Jayme’s and Asia Youngman’s “I’m Just Here for the Riot” (ESPN 30 for 30), about violence that erupted after the Vancouver Canucks’ loss of the Stanley Cup final in 2011, is one of three titles world-premiering in the Canadian Spectrum competition.

Addie Morfoot Contributor “I of the Water,” one of 20 projects presented at Hot Docs’ marquee market event, the Forum, has won the First Look first prize of Can. $50,000 ($36,700), one of four pitch prizes announced Wednesday at the festival. Kimberlee Bassford’s “I of the Water” focuses on acclaimed Samoan writer Sia Figiel’s hidden past of sexual abuse and journey toward healing. The film is produced by Bassford, Marilyn McFadyen, Vilsoni Hereniko, Leanne K. Ferrer, Cheryl Hirasa, and Linda Goldstein Knowlton. The second First Look prize, worth Can. $15,000, was awarded to Kenya-Jade Pinto “The Sandbox,” a Canadian production with a vague tagline: “Your future is being written in the sand.” The doc is produced by Shasha Nakhai, Kenya-Jade Pinto, Jennifer Baichwal, and Rich Williamson.

Back in the days before he began asking wrestling fans if they could smell what the Rock was cooking, Dwayne Johnson put together an outfit and posed for a photo that haunts him to this day.