I, Poppy directed by Vivek Chaudhary has won the Best International Feature Documentary award along with the $10,000 cash prize at the 2025 Hot Docs documentary film festival. Agatha’s Almanac directed by Amalie Atkins walked away with Best Canadian Feature Documentary award along with $10,000 cash prize.

In I, Poppy, the documentary follows a son as he fights corrupt officials while his mother tends their poppy farm in India. Agatha’s Almanac is a cinematic portrait of simple seasonal living in which a fiercely independent Mennonite woman lives alone on her ancestral farm in Southern Manitoba. Hot Docs is an Academy Awards® qualifying festival for feature documentaries. The winner of Hot Docs Best International Feature Documentary, I Poppy, will qualify for consideration in the Best Documentary Feature category of the annual Academy Awards without the standard theatrical run, provided the film complies with Academy rules.

A Special Jury Prize-International Feature Documentary was given to Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass , an ode to the Florida Everglades that explores its historical and ongoing challenges through the writings and testimonies of environmentalists, educators and current denizens.

The Special Jury Prize-Canadian Feature Documentary was presented to Paul directed by Denis Côté, following Paul who finds comfort in doing domestic chores for dominant women as a way to cope with depression and social anxiety, .

In the short film category, Delta Dawn directed by Asia Youngman won the Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary; and Alice directed by Gabriel Novis took the Best International Short Documentary. Hot Docs is an Academy Awards® qualifying festival for short documentaries and, as winners of the 2025 Hot Docs Best International Short Documentary and the Hot Docs Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary, respectively, Alice and Delta Dawn will qualify for consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category of the annual Academy Awards without the standard theatrical run, provided they comply with Academy rules.

Complete list of jury award winners of 2025 Hot Docs documentary film festival

Hot Docs Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary, supported by John and Betty Youson, was presented to Delta Dawn (D: Asia Youngman), which chronicles the electric rise to fame of wrestling sensation Dawn Murphy in the 1980s and early 1990s. Known as Princess Delta Dawn, she was the first Indigenous and Canadian woman to compete professionally in Japan. The Award includes a $3,000 cash prize.

Hot Docs Best International Short Documentary, sponsored by TVO Docs, was presented to Alice (D: Gabriel Novis), in which Alice, a trans woman, finds solace in surfing the waters of Maceió, Brazil. Hot Docs is pleased to present the winner with a $3,000 cash prize, courtesy of TVO Docs.

Canadian producer Cornelia Principe, producer of Shamed (D: Matt Gallagher), in which an online vigilante, self-described as the “Creeper Hunter,” seeks out potential sexual predators and ambushes them in videotaped confrontations, exposing them to the court of public opinion, received the Hot Docs Don Haig Award.

Hot Docs Best Mid-Length Documentary, sponsored by Mubi, was presented to Climate In Therapy (D: Nathan Grossman), in which seven climate scientists gather to discuss a taboo subject in their field: emotions. What emerges is a transformational discussion that humanizes the enormity of the climate crisis, powerfully voicing the unspeakable.

The Lindalee Tracey Award, which honors an emerging Canadian filmmaker with a passionate point of view, a strong sense of social justice and a sense of humour, was presented to Regan Latimer.

Hot Docs Docs for Schools Student Choice Award was presented to Writing Hawa (D: Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori (co-director)), in which, after freeing herself from a constraining 40-year arranged marriage, the filmmaker’s mother hopes for a brighter future, not only for herself but also her daughter and granddaughter, but her dreams are decimated by the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan.

Hot Docs first look Awards for Works-In-Progress were presented to The Blue Sweater with a Yellow Hole (D: Tetiana Khodakivska); Land of No Pain (D: Émilie Martel), and Untying the Knot (D: Chona Mangalindan).

Hot Docs Earl A. Glick Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award is given to a Canadian filmmaker whose film in competition is their first or second feature-length film. The Award, which includes a $3,000 cash prize courtesy of the Earl A. Glick Family, was presented to Damien Eagle Bear, the director of #skoden (D: Damien Eagle Bear), in which an iconic Indigenous meme sparks a poignant exploration of the unhoused Alberta man behind the viral phenomenon.

Hot Docs Bill Nemtin Award for Best Social Impact Documentary, sponsored by the Bill Nemtin Legacy Fund, which recognizes the producers of a Hot Docs 2025 official selection film who find and tell compelling stories that inspire social or political change, and encourage their audiences to change their attitudes or behaviours or strive for policy change, went to Talal Afifi and Giovanna Stopponi of Khartoum (D: Phil Cox, Ibrahim Ahmed, Anas Saeed, Timeea Ahmed, Rawia Alhag), in which a group of displaced Sudanese filmmakers empower five of their fellow citizens to re-enact dramatic testimonies of their nation’s descent into civil war and their journeys to neighbouring East Africa seeking refuge.

In the Best Social Impact Documentary category, the jury also acknowledged Writing Hawa (D: Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori (co-director)).

Hot Docs DGC Special Jury Prize-Canadian Feature Documentary, sponsored by DGC National and DGC Ontario, was presented to Paul (D: Denis Côté), in which, to cope with depression and social anxiety, Paul finds comfort in doing domestic chores for dominant women.

Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature Documentary, supported by Telefilm Canada, was presented to Agatha’s Almanac (D: Amalie Atkins), a cinematic portrait of simple seasonal living in which a fiercely independent Mennonite woman lives alone on her ancestral farm in Southern Manitoba.

Hot Docs Emerging International Filmmaker Award, supported by Donner Canadian Foundation, was presented to Amilcar Infante and Sebastian Gonzalez Mendez, directors of Unwelcomed (D: Amilcar Infante, Sebastian Gonzalez Mendez), which examines contrasting perspectives around the migrant crisis in Chile following the country’s most violent anti-immigrant protest, sparked by an unprecedented influx of migrants from Venezuela.

Hot Docs Joan VanDuzer Special Jury Prize-International Feature Documentary, in memory of long time Hot Docs supporter Joan VanDuzer, was given to River of Grass (D: Sasha Wortzel), an ode to the Florida Everglades that explores its historical and ongoing challenges through the writings and testimonies of environmentalists, educators and current denizens

In the category of Special Jury Prize-International Feature Documentary, the jury also acknowledged I Dreamed His Name (D: Angela Carabalí).

Hot Docs Best International Feature Documentary was awarded to I, Poppy (D: Vivek Chaudhary), in which a son fights corrupt officials while his mother tends their poppy farm in India.