The Hottest August

Brett Story is a geographer and non-fiction filmmaker based out of Toronto and New York. Her films have screened at True/False, Oberhausen, Hot Docs, the Viennale, and Dok Leipzig, among other festivals. Her second feature-length film, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and was a nominee for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards. The film was broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens in April of 2017. Brett holds a PhD in geography from the University of Toronto and is the author of a non-fiction book, The Prison Out of Place, forthcoming from the University of California Press in 2018. She was the recipient of the Documentary Organization of Canada Institute’s 2014 New Visions Award and the 2016 Governor General’s Gold Medal from the University of Toronto for academic excellence. Brett was a 2016 Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow.

Danielle Varga is a nonfiction producer. She most recently produced Bulletproof directed by Todd Chandler, who won the Hot Docs Award for Best Emerging International Filmmaker. She produced Brett Story’s critically acclaimed documentary The Hottest August and co-produced Kirsten Johnson's award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted film Cameraperson.