The Nechako River is an invaluable resource that crosses the territory of several First Nations in British Columbia’s Northwest region. When it was dammed in the 1950s to provide water for Rio Tinto Alcans Aluminum Smelter, salmon populations were decimated and the First Nations’ way of life was disrupted.

In Nechako: It will be a Big River Again, Stellat’en director Lyana Patrick follows the Saik’uz Nation and her own Nation in their quest to recognize their rights and restore the flow of the river. The film reveals how historic colonial dynamics imposed by government and resource companies destroyed integral parts of First Nations communities, and how these wrongs are being righted through painstaking legal battles—many led by women fighting for their families and access to traditional lands.

Patrick creates an intimate portrait of community resilience and the tireless legal fight to protect the land that sustains them. Nechako: It will be a Big River Again makes its Ontario premiere as PIF’s opening night selection.

At the heart of our climate crisis are the climate scientists who study the realities of our deteriorating planet – and therefore hold the deepest knowledge of its future. What happens when they finally speak their truth?

In director Nathan Grossman’s urgent documentary, we are invited into a hotel conference room with a therapist and seven leading climate scientists. Together they embark on an unlikely journey as they are guided to shed their professional armour and reveal their unspoken fears as they confront the emotional toll of bearing witness to our planet’s crisis. The ensuing honesty suggests that such vulnerability holds a key to our survival. 

This intimate look into the psyches of those who know our natural world best creates profound space for viewers to examine their own anxieties, and sense of responsibility. After its world premiere at CPH:DOX, the film returns to Toronto where it earned Hot Docs 2025’s Best Mid-Length Documentary award. CLIMATE IN THERAPY is a refreshingly raw, tender, and even sometimes funny study about how to maintain hope in the dark.

The internet has become an invisible force driving nearly every aspect of our lives, yet we rarely consider how profoundly this nebulous entity has transformed humanity. In The End of the Internet, Toronto director Dylan Reibling investigates the origins of the web and the unintended consequences reshaping our world today.

The film examines who controls the internet’s levers of power and influence, revealing how diverse factions are fighting to restore it as a principled tool for universal access and equal participation. Following a global cast of characters—from Hong Kong dissidents affected by government censorship, to Indigenous Brazilians using programs to protect data sovereignty, to Catalans who built community-driven networks promoting free speech, to a Berlin commune shaping the internet around mutual aid, to tech companies betting on utopian decentralized visions—Reibling’s documentary captures the deeply human side of our most transformative technology.

The film asks whether we can reclaim the internet’s founding promise of connection and liberation. Join us for the Canadian premiere of The End of the Internet, following its world premiere at CPH DOX.

In an era of social media influencers and self-help gurus, understanding self-meaning in our individualist society seems more elusive than ever. In Your Higher Self, Quebecoise filmmaker Annie St-Pierre takes an unconventional and playful look at the booming phenomenon of life coaching.

The film offers intimate windows into coaching sessions, observing as coaches guide clients through therapeutic experiences to achieve spiritual awakening. Rather than investigating effectiveness, St-Pierre quietly observes clients’ quests for self-betterment without judgment, exploring questions of belief and meaning in our hyper-individualistic society where many people feel lost in the excesses of capitalism, and where spirituality has become increasingly commodified.

Annie St-Pierre is an apostle of Canadian independent cinema, having collaborated with Denis Côté, Matthew Rankin, and Monia Chokri. Her work has earned Canadian Screen Award nominations and an Academy Award shortlist. Your Higher Self screened at SXSW, RIDM, and Visions before coming to PIF.

In the late 1980s, as former navy veteran and Hells Angel member Terry Kennedy was trying to put his troubled past behind him, he met Willy Wow, a 22-foot manta ray who changed everything. Off the remote coast of Mexico’s San Benedicto island, their unlikely bond became the stuff of legend – and led to Terry spending more time with manta rays than any human ever before him. He even inspired the first scientific studies of giant oceanic manta rays.

Now in his eighties, Terry faces his own mortality as he returns to Baja’s waters for a final time, hoping to reunite with his old friend. Director Cody Sheehy’s exhilarating and visually stunning documentary, which had its world premiere at Tribeca and now comes to PIF for its Canadian premiere, follows Terry’s emotional last dive and quest to reconnect with Willy Wow.

This portrait of connection and conservation reveals how one man’s friendship with a giant manta ray transformed both marine science, and his own understanding of what it means to belong.

Mount Everest is known for its heroic expedition tales dating back to the days of Sir Edmund Hillary, but in recent years it has developed a more treacherous reputation. An overlooked part of this story is the Nepalese guides who risk their lives daily to help climbers safely navigate their ascent.

Everest Dark tells the story of Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, revered as a national hero in Nepal for leading numerous rescue missions. After nearly retiring from climbing, Mingma undertakes a mission to recover a body from Everest’s slopes, so it can be returned home and restore balance to the mountain gods.

Directed by award-winning Canadian documentarian Jereme Watt and produced by Oscar-nominated Ina Finchman and veteran producer Merit Jensen Carr, the film’s stunning cinematography captures the grandeur and unforgiving terrain of Mingma’s trek. He and his team must navigate extreme weather, impossibly steep slopes, and deep ice crevasses in order to accomplish their impossibly dangerous mission.

Everest Dark screens at PIF following screenings at CPH DOX, DC/DOX and Festival International du Film de Montreal.