The Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) has unveiled the full program of its 28th edition, which will take place from November 20 to 30, 2025. With a selection of 136 films from 47 countries, bringing together the works of established filmmakers and promising new talents, “RIDM remains true to its mandate to present the richness of diverse perspectives on the world through the most stimulating and distinctive visions of documentary cinema,” write organisers.
To encourage “encounters” (or “rencontres”) around these works, numerous discussions, activities, and festive events are also planned, some of which are offered free of charge.
The programming and artistic direction collective of Hubert Sabino-Brunette, Ana Alice de Morais and Marlene Edoyan write: “We intend to make this 28th edition a relevant cultural event in which documentary cinema asserts its artistic value, political power, and potential to bring people together, with programming that affirms the possibilities of cinema and helps us to think about the world, while continuing to hope for better days.” –
The festival will open November 20 with the screening of Letters From Wolf Street in the presence of director Arjun Talwar and editor Bigna Tomschin. Having made its mark at the Berlinale and CPH:DOX, this documentary paints a tender and nuanced portrait of a Warsaw neighbourhood, seen through the eyes of a director with an immigrant background who is in search of belonging. The screening of the opening film will be preceded by the short film Memorial Continuum by Malcom Odd, created as part of the Conseil des arts de Montréal’s Regard sur Montréal 2025 film residency.
The festival will close with the screening of Quebec feature film The Blueberry Blues (Les blues du bleuet) directed by Andrés Livov, who will be present for the occasion. Deeply rooted in the Lac-Saint-Jean region, this ensemble film sensitively portrays a community gathered around the iconic fruit during the summer season. The screening of the closing film will be preceded by a Wapikoni short film, Ruby, la petite fourmi directed by François Bergeron.
In keeping with its mission to support and promote auteur documentary filmmaking in Quebec and Canada, RIDM is once again setting itself apart as a prime showcase for these works, with a selection of 57 national films presented this year, including 12 world premieres. Feature films by Sylvain L’Espérance (Marche commune), Nadine Gomez (Chronicle of a City), Jean-François Caissy (Kindergarten), and Diana Allen (Partition) will be among those screened. Every film in the national competition will be preceded by a short film from Wapikoni.
Other local films stand out this year, including The End of the Internet by Dylan Reibling, an immersion into the struggles of activists and professionals fighting for a web free from the authority of digital giants and the control of personal data, and Recomposée by Nadia Louis-Desmarchais, in which a mixed-race filmmaker, raised in a white adoptive family, draws on archives, memories, and testimonials to confront normalized racism and maternal abandonment.
Festival-goers will also have the chance to attend the special screening of While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven Parts, an epic work by Peter Mettler, and to discover the film Agatha’s Almanac by filmmaker Amalie Atkins, which transports us into the unique, colourful, and lush world of her aunt, Agatha Bock, an independent, radiant nonagenarian with a lively spirit.
On the international front, several films with remarkable festival runs will be presented at RIDM. Among those, Ancestral Visions of the Future by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese offers a captivating and poetic cinematic testimony that explores an inventive and free-flowing look at exile, memory, and the future, and With Hasan in Gaza by Kamal Aljafari reveals rediscovered footage from 2001 of Palestinian residents bearing witness to past violence. Today, that footage resonates as a reflection on memory, history, and the ongoing horrors of genocide.
Prominent in New Visions Competition is Days of Wonder by Karin Pennanen. In the film, Pennanen discovers the hidden world of her artist uncle and begins to make a film about his life – to her surprise, alongside him. A journey toward a cinematic dialogue unfolds with surprises and the joy of creation, one in which the will to be true to oneself is, in the end, more important than external approval.
Among this year’s “surprises” are L’Ancre by Jen Debauche, starring Charlotte Rampling as a psychotherapist, which uses symbolic imagery shot on 16mm black-and-white film to present a profound journey into the human mind; A Scary Movieby Sergio Oksman, in which the vacation of a filmmaker and his son in an abandoned hotel intersects with the story of a murderer from the 1830s and the personal memories of a past that shapes and haunts; and Rising Through the Fray by Courtney Montour, in which Indigenous women discover through roller derby a space of sisterhood and healing, allowing them to assert the complexity of their identity and build a community.
New works of filmmakers well known to RIDM audiences will be screened this year, including Écrire la vie – Annie Ernaux racontée par des lycéennes et des lycéens by Claire Simon, as well as the recent films of two artists who were the subject of major retrospectives at RIDM in 2023 and 2024, namely Sky Hopinka (Powwow People) and Iva Radivojević (Dragica, Danica, Duška / or / when Zora, the goddess of Dawn, opens the gates of Heaven for Sun to emerge).
The short films selected this year once again “demonstrate the richness and originality of works in the short film format,” write organisers. Among them, Beneath Which Rivers Flow by filmmaker Ali Yahya blends portraits and a speculative narrative to explore the human and geographical impacts of climate change on the daily lives of an Iraqi family, while with Jeux de Correspondance, filmmakers Hoda Adra and Dan Popa combine their talents to offer, with a refined touch of humour and bite, a riveting poetic and political look at the Paris Olympics and, more broadly, our current era.
This 28th edition will be marked by its special programs, the Focus Taiwan and the O Grivo and Louise Bourque retrospectives, as well as its Unframing Documentary section, which this year includes the new Carte Blanche: Documentary + Musical Performance and the return of the UXdoc section.
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE COMPETITION
- Ancestral Visions of the Future by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (France, Lesotho, Germany, Qatar)
- And the Fish Fly Above Our Heads by Dima El-Horr (France, Lesotho, Germany, Qatar)
- Evidence by Lee Anne Schmitt (United States)
- Gods of Stone by Iván Castiñeiras Gallego (Spain, Portugal, France)
- Imago by Déni Oumar Pitsaev (France, Belgium)
- Past Future Continuous by Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza Ahmadvand (Iran, Norway, Italy)
- Underground by Kaori Oda (Japan)
- Waking Hours by Federico Cammarata and Filippo Foscarini (Italy)
- With Hasan in Gaza by Kamal Aljafari (Palestine, Germany, France, Qatar)
- The World Upside Down by Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter (Argentina, Switzerland)
- The Blueberry Blues (Les blues du bleuet) by Andrés Livov (Quebec/Canada)
- Chronicle of a City (Chronique d’une ville) by Nadine Gomez (Quebec/Canada)
- I Lost Sight of the Landscape (J’ai perdu de vue le paysage) by Sophie Bédard Marcotte (Quebec/Canada)
- Kindergarten (Jardin d’enfants) by Jean-François Caissy (Quebec/Canada)
- Marche commune by Sylvain L’Espérance (Quebec/Canada)
- Partition by Diana Allan (Palestine, Lebanon, Quebec/Canada)
MAGNUS ISACSSON COMPETITION of national films with a strong social conscience.
- The End of the Internet by Dylan Reibling (Canada)
- Green Valley by Morgan Tams (Canada)
- The Inheritors (Les héritiers) by Serge-Olivier Rondeau (Quebec/Canada)
- Spare My Bones, Coyote! (Mais où va-t-on, Coyote?) by Jonah Malak (Quebec/Canada)
- Recomposée by Nadia Louis-Desmarchais (Quebec/Canada)
- Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man by Sinakson Trevor Solway (Canada)
- True North by Michèle Stephenson (Canada, United States)
NEW VISIONS COMPETITION of daring international and national first features.
- Agatha’s Almanac by Amalie Atkins (Canada)
- L’Ancre by Jen Debauche (Belgium)
- Days of Wonder by Karin Pennanen (Finland)
- États Généraux by Mauricio Freyre (Peru, Spain)
- In the Manner of Smoke by Armand Yervant Tufenkian (United States, United Kingdom)
- Sirens Call by Miri Ian Gossing and Lina Sieckmann (Germany, Netherlands)
- Soul of the Foot by Mustafa Uzuner (Canada, Türkiye)
- Wind, Talk to Me by Stefan Djordjevic (Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia)
INTERNATIONAL SHORT AND MEDIUM-LENGTH COMPETITION
- 09/05/1982 by Jorge Caballero and Camilo Restrepo (Mexico, Spain)
- Bardo by Viera Čákanyová (Czech Republic, Slovakia)
- Beneath Which Rivers Flow by Ali Yahya (Iraq)
- Coltan by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo (Democratic Republic of Congo, United States)
- Dragica, Danica, Duška / or / when Zora, the goddess of Dawn, opens the gates of Heaven for Sun to emerge by Iva Radivojević (United States, Kosovo)
- Elegy for the Lost by William Hong-xiao Wei (United Kingdom, France, Spain)
- Landscapes of Longing by Mireya Martinez, Anoushka Mirchandani and Alisha Tejpal (India, United States)
- The Last Harvest by Nuno Boaventura Miranda (Cape Verde, Portugal)
- Marratein, Marratein by Julia Yezbick (United States, Lebanon)
- L’mina by Randa Maroufi (France, Morocco, Italy, Qatar)
- re-engraved by Lei Lei (United States)
- Rezbotanik by Pedro Gonçalves Ribeiro (Brazil, Portugal, Spain)
- Rio Remains Beautiful by Felipe Casanova (Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil)
- Where Do Birds Go When It Rains by Juan Sebastian Sisa (Colombia)
NATIONAL SHORT AND MEDIUM-LENGTH COMPETITION
- 100 years by Mitchell Stafiej (Quebec/Canada)
- A History of Sadness by Layla Tosifi (Canada)
- Dog Days of Summer by Virgile Ratelle (Quebec/Canada)
- Études métamorphiques by Nelly Paquentin and David B. Ricard (Canada)
- Film de roche by Laurence Olivier (Canada)
- J’ai eu une idée évidente et j’attends qu’elle revienne by Emilie Baillargeon (Quebec/Canada)
- Jeux de Correspondance by Hoda Adra and Dan Popa (Quebec/Canada, France)
- Leur existence by Clarence de Bayser and Xavier Doutre (Quebec/Canada)
- Lloyd Wong, Unfinished by Lesley Loksi Chan and Lloyd Wong (Canada)
- Momentum by Nada El-Omari (Canada)
- Morning Circle by Basma Al-Sharif (Canada, United Arab Emirates)
- Romy tient un journal by Charles-Émile Lafrance (Quebec/Canada)
- Tigers Can Be Seen in the Rain by Oscar Ruiz Navia (Colombia, Quebec/Canada)
- Tuktuit : Caribou by Lindsay McIntyre (Canada)
Click here for details of the full RIDM program.
