Montreal, Monday, September 29, 2025 - Forum RIDM is proud to unveil the selected Canadian short, medium and feature length film projects for Doc Lab Montréal. These projects will allow participants to join international delegations, benefit from mentoring sessions and take part in various professional activities offered as part of the Forum RIDM, presented by the Canada Media Fund (CMF).
Prizes will be awarded to national projects by renowned partners such as Rogers, Vidéographe, Main Film, Lussier & Khouzam, CineGround, SLA Location, Bam Music, T&S Coop, Royal Photo, and the National Film Board of Canada.
Feature film projects
Filmmakers, who may be accompanied by a producer, will have the unique opportunity to present their projects during a pitch session held as part of Forum RIDM’s professional market.
Two selected feature projects delve into family ties through the personal story of a male figure who has had a significant impact on the filmmakers. Directed by a daughter exploring the world of her father, a Quebec-based artist, Oh My Dad! by Grace Divya Singh presents itself as a Bollywood documentary about masculinity, immigration and creation. In M.O.S (Mute On Sound), director Kenza Derkaoui embarks on a quest to uncover the lost archives of her grandfather, a Moroccan filmmaker, while unveiling a past he’s reluctant to face. With Haunted: a ghost movie about family estrangement, director Laurence Olivier also addresses kinship, instead focusing on the taboo and relevant topic of family estrangement. For if family is “what's left when there's nothing left”, what do you do when you're separated from it for good? Also pursuing a reflection on grief, filmmaker Zahra Ahooei embarks with HouseLight on an experimental journey to reconstruct her fractured sense of self in the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death.
Three projects reveal themselves through a sociological perspective. As more and more Western countries are outsourcing the detention of migrants as well as ordinary inmates, Outsourcing Prisons by Jenny Cartwright reveals that Kosovo is likely to be the next to lease out its penal institutions. Dinosaurs by Emilie Baillargeon paints the portrait of a car-centric world destined to disappear, drawing a parallel between the human life cycle and that of the car, an object both sacred and cursed. For its part, The Jungle by Jamie Ross travels the trails of Mount Royal in the company of queer elders and biologists, searching for the ecological remnants of the largest “social cleansing” in Canadian history. A quest that glitters in the darkness.
Medium-length film projects
In the medium-length film category, three projects are eminently political. In response to the rise of reactionary ideologies, filmmaker Bleue Pronovost-Teyssier founds a Satanist congregation and champions dissent in A Mark on the Forehead or the Right Hand. For its part, Shoveling Clouds: AI and Responsibilities by Malcom Odd, winner of the Regard sur Montréal Film Residency, is a documentary on the global exception of the Quebec model in terms of artificial intelligence. Lodge 147 by Morgan Tams focuses on a remote corner of northeastern British Columbia, where industrial, environmental, and human cycles collide as the inner workings of an 800-person work camp emerge from an otherwise barren landscape.
Finally, for the two remaining selected medium-length film projects, the main focus is identity. In Justin — in it to Win it, selected in collaboration with RACCORD, director Nathalie Lopez-Gutierrez follows a young immigrant from the Congo, as he is pursuing his dream of becoming a professional soccer player, despite overwhelming pressure and a fierce struggle to exist both on the field and online. With Between the City and Nitaskinan, selected in collaboration with the Wapikoni, Atikamekw filmmaker Marie-Kristine Petiquay seeks ways to keep alive the cultural roots she wishes to pass on to her future children.
Short film projects
Three short films revolve around culture and craft a unique narrative about transmission. In All the Ways We Return by Johanna Silver, selected in collaboration with the Wapikoni, a family seeks ways to reconnect to their Metis heritage, suppressed for generations. With Disco of the Dead, director Gabriel Walta Busulwa returns to Uganda to expose Disco Matanga’s buried harm and reclaim its spirit through testimonies and a healing dance. Through an autofictional scenario, Narcissus Flower by Dédé Chen follows René’s search for identity. Adopted from China, she sets out through the city streets in search of a mysterious writer named Sui Sin Far.
Two portraits of women conclude the selection. With Bica, director Irina Tempea takes us on a brief journey into her grandmother’s daily life, somewhere in Romania, through textures, nostalgia, flowers, and love. With Lady Copper, filmmaker Ariel St-Louis Lamoureux presents the quest of a 70-year-old woman, who raised $1.2 million by recycling copper from a closed-down mine.
Doc Lab Montréal’s 2025 Canadian cohort is presented with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
About Forum RIDM
Forum RIDM aims to stimulate the production and distribution of independent documentaries, both nationally and internationally, by promoting the exchange of information and meetings between the various professionals in the documentary industry. Roundtables, conferences and workshops on major current issues will bring together over 500 filmmakers and representatives of various production, broadcasting and distribution companies over five days.
About the Canada Media Fund
The Canada Media Fund (CMF) fosters, develops, finances, and promotes the production of Canadian content and applications for all audiovisual media platforms. The CMF guides Canadian content towards a competitive global environment by fostering industry innovation, rewarding success, enabling a diversity of voices, and promoting access to content through public and private sector partnerships. The CMF receives financial contributions from the Government of Canada and Canada’s cable, satellite, and IPTV distributors.
Forum RIDM’s 21st edition, presented by the Canada Media Fund (CMF), will take place from November 21 to 26, 2025.
Information: ridm.ca/en/forum-ridm / forum@ridm.ca
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For interview or visual material requests, please contact:
Caroline Rompré | pixelleX communications | 514-778-9294 | caroline@pixellex.ca