Hot Docs has wrapped its 30th anniversary edition, handing out its top cash prize and announcing the audience top picks after an 11-day festival, which presented 214 films from 72 countries at 308 live screenings at venues across Toronto.

Philippe Falardeau’s “Lac-Mégantic—This Is Not an Accident” topped the overall audience poll to win the 2023 Hot Docs Audience Award. The four-part series from the Oscar-nominated director explores the causes of one of Canada’s worst rail disasters and what’s needed to prevent such accidents in the future.

“Someone Lives Here,” by Zack Russell, won the Rogers Audience Awards for Best Canadian Documentary, which comes with Cdn. $50,000

Indian studio Excel Entertainment has promoted business head Vishal Ramchandani to the newly created position of CEO.

An MBA by qualification, Ramchandani joined Excel in 2008, in the marketing division. In 2013, he was entrusted with the duties of heading the division, where he spearheaded award-winning marketing campaigns for films such as “Fukrey,” “Baar Baar Dekho,” “Gold” and “Gully Boy.”

In 2018, Ramchandani was elevated to the position of business head. In this role, he played a pivotal role in transforming Excel Entertainment from a creative production house to a studio that self-funds, markets and distributes its films. Under his leadership, the company’s distribution

Joe Piscatella’s 2017 “Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower” offered a fairly exhilarating view of youth activism, as it charted one Hong Kong student’s spearheading public opposition to mainland China’s increasingly heavy-handed takeover. The can-do optimism that documentary left viewers with is on life support in the director’s follow-up, which shifts nominal focus to one of Joshua Wong’s fellow protest leaders. But mostly “Who’s Afraid of Nathan Law?” observes the gradual crushing of a pro-democracy movement that not long ago had promised to engage Beijing in genuine dialogue. This equally skillful if much more downbeat sequel should follow its predecessor to wide travel on the festival circuit, then broadcast and

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” made $28 million of gross box office on its opening weekend in mainland China. That was a solid result in present circumstances, rather than an overwhelming one.

The film easily displaced two of the weaker Chinese titles that had been released a week earlier to take advantage of the five-day May Day holiday season.

“Born to Fly,” a patriotic action adventure about Chinese test pilots, nose-dived by 75% as it fell from a $40 million first place debut to a $11.2 million third-placed second flap. Its cumulative after two weekends is $77.3 million, according to weekend data from consultancy Artisan

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 5 of “Barry,” now streaming on HBO Max.

Last week’s episode of “Barry” ended on one of the show’s most bizarre cliffhangers: Barry (Bill Hader) and Sally (Sarah Goldberg) appeared to be several years older and living in a house in the desert with a young son. The HBO show has toyed with flashbacks and dream-like sequences before, and Sunday’s newest episode didn’t reveal what was going on until the final minutes…

…and it’s a time jump into the future!

The end of last week’s episode actually moved ahead eight years, during which Barry and Sally

SPOILER ALERT: This recap contains spoilers for Season 4, Episode 7 of “Succession,” now streaming on HBO Max.

The election looms over “Succession,” which means not only will there be a new president of the United States but, more importantly? Nate is back.

The charming — or sleazy, depending on how you view him — political strategist, portrayed by Ashley Zukerman, has reentered the world of the Roys in order to mingle with Waystar’s top brass and the political elite, and make Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) jealous in his own home.

In Episode 7, titled “Tailgate Party,” Tom and Shiv (Sarah Snook) host a gathering on

DR Sales has sold Canadian distribution rights for Norwegian director Tonje Hessen Schei’s “Praying for Armageddon” to LevelFilm. The deal was revealed follows the film’s North American premiere at Hot Docs Film Festival. The film made its world premiere in CPH:DOX.

The film explores the power and influence of powerful U.S. fundamentalist evangelicals as they aim to fulfil the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. With close quarters journalism, the feature documentary embeds with American believers who prepare for the Holy War and exposes how powerful megachurch pastors call for the “final battle” that they believe will trigger the Second Coming of Christ. A deep dive into power and

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ignited to $282 million globally, including a better-than-expected $168 million at the international box office.

Heading into the weekend, Disney’s superhero tentpole was projected to collect $130 million to $140 million overseas. Thanks to positive word-of-mouth, estimates were revised up by Sunday. That’s good news because summer movie season is only going to get more competitive as “Fast X” and “The Little Mermaid” open later this month.

In North America, the conclusion to Marvel’s trilogy about a band of intergalactic misfits opened to $114 million, ranking as the second-biggest domestic opening weekend of the year, behind “The Super Mario Bros.

Oscar nominated director Nicole Newnham (“Crip Camp”) was at Hot Docs with her latest film “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” a portrait of a feminist pioneer. The helmer was also in Toronto to participate in a Hot Docs Industry storytelling masterclass. During the hour-long talk Newnham revealed how she tackles three of the trickiest aspects of documentary filmmaking.

“The Disappearance of Shere Hite” Courtesy of Hot Docs

How to make a subject feel comfortable:

“Geeky curiosity is my authentic M.O. and that also is disarming to people. It puts them at ease. If you

Wahoo! “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” crossed $500 million at the domestic box office, becoming one of only 19 films to ever surpass that benchmark.

In its fifth weekend of release, the movie collected a huge $18.5 million from 3,909 North American theaters and landed in second place behind Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($116 million).

At this point, the animated video game adaptation — from Universal, Illumination and Nintendo — is the highest-grossing movie of the year in North America with $518 million and globally with $1.15 billion. It’s the first movie from Illumination, the company behind “Despicable Me” and “Sing,”