Citizen Minutes – Series 4

Deadline: March 19, 2026

Hot Docs is seeking emerging to mid-career filmmakers to create short films for the fourth of Citizen Minutes. This is an opportunity for directors to have a fulsome experience with film production, exhibition, distribution, and impact. 

Hot Docs will be commissioning six films, approximately 6-10 minutes long, that explore themes like resilience, democracy, empathy, empowerment, and fairness, as the subjects work to improve their community’s social and cultural wellbeing. These stories should celebrate and inspire civic engagement—especially among young people. 

Hot Docs recognizes that civic engagement does not always mean moving the dial on global issues in a monumental way. Hot Docs is therefore interested in applications that spotlight stories about ordinary citizens working to achieve incremental change in their own communities, on the local level.