Hot Docs lineup includes ‘The Nest,’ ‘Deaf President Now!,” Apocalypse in the Tropics’

Phoneless concert a beautiful chance to bask in moment

Outside the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, digital billboards flashed fans their singular photo op for the night: “I took this photo before I saw Phoebe Bridgers: The Lost Tour 2026.”

It is, as it is for so many other people, my only documentation of a concert by one of my favourite artists. The American singer-songwriter — who I discovered at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2018 — has had a meteoric rise in the past few years, winning three Grammys in 2024 as one third of Boygenius, the indie-rock supergroup rounded out by Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, and opening for Taylor Swift on select dates of her titanic Eras Tour.

Now, Bridgers is touring in support of Lost Weekend, her third album and first since 2020’s Punisher. It’s a feat of a record, a richly textured meditation on loss and grief, written in the aftermath of the death of her dad, with whom she had a complicated relationship.

So she is in a position to not only play multiple sold-out arena shows, but also insist that those shows be phone-free.

A Rocky day on the mayoral campaign trail for Kevin Klein

Kevin Klein acknowledges it’s hard to foresee what he’ll wake up to each morning in the final weeks of a mayoral campaign.

But the seasoned politician, who has served as both a city councillor and a provincial cabinet minister, couldn’t have predicted the events — what he describes as “drama” — that unfolded last Sunday.

Fellow mayoral candidate Mike Vogiatzakis accused Klein’s campaign team of offering him a job to drop out of the race, while a guest writer’s column in the Winnipeg Sun that questioned the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools, just days after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, sparked condemnation from a prominent Indigenous organization. (Klein is the CEO of the Klein Group, the company that owns the Sun. He has maintained he is not involved in its operations while running for mayor.)

The Free Press had already been scheduled to join Klein on the campaign trail Monday, intending to document a day in the life of the front-running candidate to unseat incumbent Scott Gillingham, before the controversies hit.

Crime spree lands accused murderers behind bars

Three men have been sentenced to jail terms for a commercial robbery spree in southern Manitoba launched just two weeks after they are accused of killing a 19-year-old man in Abbotsford, B.C.

Twenty-two-year-old Ravdeep Gill of Winnipeg, pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of robbery and Harmandeep Gill, 27, of Brampton, Ont. and Jaskaran Singh, 21, of Surrey, B.C., each pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery for a 10-day crime blitz that targeted gas bars in Swan Lake, Teulon and St. Laurent, and a meat shop in Winnipeg.

Ravdeep Gill was sentenced to four years custody while Harmandeep Gill and Singh each received sentences of 30 months.

According to B.C. media reports, all three men are charged with first-degree murder in a Feb. 1, 2025 killing in Abbotsford that police there described as a targeted hit.

Hot Docs lineup includes ‘The Nest,’ ‘Deaf President Now!,” Apocalypse in the Tropics’

The embattled Hot Docs festival has announced the first batch of films that will screen in its special presentations program this year.

A personal doc called “The Nest” from Canada’s Chase Joynt and Julietta Singh will make its world premiere. It follows Singh as she returns to her childhood home in Winnipeg, uncovering stories of resistance and resilience woven through Indigenous, Deaf, Japanese and South Asian narratives.

Among international premieres is “Deaf President Now!,” an account of the 1988 student protest that redefined accessibility rights in the U.S., and “Life After,” in which filmmaker Reid Davenport explores the implications of assisted suicide laws on disabled individuals.

Canadian premieres include “Antidote,” a doc-thriller following journalist Christo Grozev and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza as they confront Russia’s government; “Apocalypse in the Tropics,” filmmaker Petra Costa’s deep dive into the rise of religious fundamentalism in Brazil; and “Coexistence, My Ass!,” in which comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi takes on the Israel-Palestine conflict in a one-woman show.

‘Please excuse us from writing these notes …’

It’s a common-sense prescription for the health-care system. The only wonder is that it took so long to happen.