Screening // International Women’s Day - Bangla Surf Girls
When: March 9, 10:00 AM
Where: Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema (506 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON)
Please note: This screening is recommended for Grades 7-12.
Thank you for your interest.
This event is now fully booked. If you would like to join the waitlist, please email
Elspeth Arbow at
earbow@hotdocs.ca with how many seats you would like to reserve.
BANGLA SURF GIRLS
D: Elizabeth D. Costa | Bangladesh | 2021 | 86 min
Presented in partnership with Human Rights Watch
Official Selection, Hot Docs Festival 2021
Shobe, Aisha, and Suma, three teens from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, are poised to make history as Bangladesh’s first women surfers in an international competition. Driven to succeed and guided by their devoted coach, the girls find freedom in the waves as surfing becomes their only ticket out of poverty and the way for them to determine their own futures against the backdrop of stifling families and oppressive community judgment. After their coach makes the decision to leave the club, the financial support for their surfing dries up and the odds of achieving their dreams seem insurmountable. A powerful coming-of-age story and tale of resistance by Bangladeshi filmmaker Elizabeth D. Costa, Bangla Surf Girls will have you cheering for every wave and hurdle these young women overcome.
Includes a Q&A featuring writer/producer Lalita Krishna and Regina Tames, Deputy Director, Women’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch.
Past Events
Screening on February 28: BLACK ICE
D: Hubert Davis | Canada | 2022 | 97 min
At its core, Canada has been defined by the sport of hockey - our national pride, and our greatest love, but also a vivid illustration of our most severe shortcomings, and deepest inequality. BLACK ICE explores the intersection of sport and society, and attempts to uncover and breakdown the systemic issues that lie at the core of the game. Told through the eyes of past, present, and future generations of Black hockey players we explore the origins of their dreams on the ice, and their attempts to love a game that has not always loved them back.
Screening on January 31 and February 14: GOOD NIGHT OPPY
D: Ryan White | USA | 2022 | 105 min
In 2003, NASA launched twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, towards Mars with the goal of analyzing the rocks and soil for evidence of water. The rovers were designed to last 90 days on the dusty planet’s surface. Well, let’s just say the mission lasted a little longer than expected… This uplifting doc shows Mars as you’ve never seen it before and gives a glimpse into the teamwork and problem solving behind the mission that shaped a generation. Includes
a live Q&A with the Canadian Space Agency's
Tim Haltigin.
Screening on November 23: HANDLE WITH CARE: THE LEGEND OF THE NOTIC STREETBALL CREW
D: Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux, Kirk Thomas | Canada | 2021 | 86 min | Screening with closed captions
Official Selection, Hot Docs Festival 2022
Streetball is as much about attitude and self-expression as it is about dropping buckets. During an NBA-sponsored outdoor tournament in 2001, an exceptional group of racially diverse teens from Vancouver's suburbs caught a lot of attention with their individual skills and undeniable swagger. Their approach to the game set them at odds with coaches and rigid team structures. For those who didn't witness their abilities in person, VHS mixtapes circulated, bringing them global attention in the early aughts. Two decades later, the two white teens who shot and distributed those original cassettes get the crew back together and take a hard look at the issues of race, trauma and rejection that set the group against the status quo. Archival footage of their jaw-dropping moves is as impressive as ever, but it's the contemporary look back at the power dynamics, prejudice and outsider perspective that really provide unflinching honesty and openness, giving the Notic crew the props they deserve. Includes a
Q&A with filmmaker Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and other special guests.
Screening on October 27: THE WORKERS CUP
D: Adam Sobel | UK | 2017 | 92 min
Presented in partnership with Human Rights Watch
With unprecedented access to FIFA's 2022 World Cup stadium construction sites and labour camps in Qatar,
The Workers Cup follows one group of men from among the 1.6 million migrant workers preparing for the world’s largest sporting event. In the shadows of the controversial building sites, the men enthusiastically train to compete in a football tournament of their own: The Workers Cup. Exposing long work hours for scant salaries, limited freedom of movement, and harsh living conditions in isolated labour camps, this documentary explores universal themes of ambition, aspiration, sport, and masculinity, as the protagonists wrangle hope, meaning, and opportunity out of their extremely precarious circumstances. Includes a Q&A featuring Sportsnet journalist
Donnovan Bennett and
Michael Page, Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Human Rights Watch.