Voices of Canada – Industry Roundtables:
New York City is the media capital for documentary, making DOC NYC a unique gathering place for documentary filmmakers worldwide who can come to the city to leverage its power to meet with industry and advance their creative projects.
The Voices of Canada Industry Roundtables program will bring six Canadian works-in-progress film projects to NYC for a day of curated meetings and industry feedback. This initiative is co-presented by the Consulate General of Canada in New York and the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Creative Export Strategy (CES).
The 2025 DOC NYC Voices of Canada works-in-progress projects are:
Gagged
Director: Nathalie Bibeau / Producers: Nathalie Bibeau, Tara Jan, Andrea Stewart
Gagged is a poetic reckoning that unmasks how NDAs have quietly enabled abuse, stifled victims, and shaped our collective silence. Featuring a live case that will break in the film, paralleled with Zelda Perkins’ quest to ban them, it is a story about secrets and what happens to us all when the wrong ones are forced to be kept.
Inuguiniq
Director: Olivia Ikey / Producers: Kim O’Bomsawin, Andrée-Anne Frenette
Inuguiniq follows Inuk filmmaker Olivia Ikey as she and her young daughter Navarana reconnect to long-lost Inuit traditions surrounding birth. Inuguiniq offers unprecedented access to a multi-millennial people’s traditional philosophies and ways of being, which were almost completely erased. A deeply intimate story that also speaks universally about how we bring and support life in the world.
Holdouts
Director: Ric Bienstock / Producers: Ric Bienstock, Garfield Miller
Holdouts tells the eccentric, defiant stories of homeowners and business owners who refuse to sell – quirky strongholds in seas of glass and steel – exposing both their oddball charm and the larger fights over gentrification, housing, and what we call “progress.”
The Gymnasts of Fisherman Colony
Director: Habiba Nosheen / Producers: Amar Lohana, Habiba Nosheen
Against the weight of societal expectations on women and girls, three Pakistani teenagers push to make space for themselves, one somersault at a time. The film offers a rare and tender portrait of girlhood, joy, and play told through the eyes of young girls navigating the margins of society.
North Korea’s Joy Division
Director: Noa Im / Producers: Ann Shin, Sally Blake, Erica Leendertse, Mariam Bastani
Four women break decades of silence to expose North Korea’s secret “Joy Division”—a pleasure squad serving three generations of dictators. Their explosive testimonies reveal a world of sex, power, and propaganda, where performance itself becomes a weapon of control.
Turtle Island Rap
Director: Alexandra Lazarowich / Producer: Jessica Ford
Turtle Island Rap follows three young Indigenous rappers as they fight to make it in the music industry, push through colonial barriers, and challenge prejudice through their art.