The Hot Docs Podcast Festival will take place on November 18-20, 2016. It is Canada’s first international podcast festival. It is presented by Hot Docs. Many of the attending award-winning podcasters will present their podcast live for the first time ever, or the first time in Canada, at this inaugural event.

Earlier this year, in August, the Toronto Podcast Festival was held. It was founded in 2013, and was the first Podcast Festival in Canada. It featured podcasts from the Toronto area.

Hot Docs was founded in 1993 by the Documentary Organization of Canada (formerly the Canadian Independent Film Caucus), a national organization of independent documentary filmmakers. In 1996, Hot Docs became a separately incorporated organization with a mandate to showcase and support the work of Canadian and international documentary filmmakers and to promote excellence in documentary production.

Why is Hot Docs, a group of filmmakers, holding Canada’s first international podcast festival? They had enormous success with their recent live podcasts at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema with The Moth, Harmontown and Canadaland. They realize that, just like documentaries, podcasts are a means of engaging, empathizing, revealing and opening doors to encounters with new people, places and ideas.

The Hot Docs Podcast Festival will shine the spotlight on more storytellers including Radiotopia’s award-winning Criminal, Gimlet Media’s iTunes chart-topper Science Vs, and CBS’s recently-renewed Sleepover. The festival will also include more live podcasts, panels and listening parties.

More details about the Hot Docs Podcast Festival will be released on Monday, September 26, 2016. Passes will go on sale to Hot Docs members on that same day. Passes will go on sale to the general public Thursday, September 29, 2016. Single tickets will go on sale Tuesday, October 4, 2016.