Hot Docs has done an impressive job over its 15 years of reflecting evolving trends in the documentary filmmaking. North America’s biggest film festival of this genre now boasts well-attended industry events (including the Toronto Documentary Forum, which allows aspiring filmmakers to pitch their ideas to commissioning editors) and an effective mix of retrospectives, made-for-television journalistic fare, and hotly anticipated features. This year’s program is notable for its frequent straying from the charged politics that have defined the form through the past decade. Even Errol Morris’ super-hyped Abu Ghraib film, Standard Operating Procedure, is more a character study of Lynndie England and her cohorts than an evisceration of U.S. foreign policy. The best of Hot Docs ’08 consists of portraits—of the artist, of the landscape, and of that oh-so-documentary-appropriate subject, obsession.

The Hot Docs festival runs April 17 to 27.