For the very first time, both the opening night film and centrepiece gala of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival are the work of local filmmakers: Ron Chapman opens the festival with his documentary Shelter, and Aviva Armour-Ostroff fictionalizes her own family history for the psychological drama Lune, which she co-directed with her partner Arturo Perez Torres and in which she also stars. Ron and Aviva join Norm to discuss what it means to make a movie about the Jewish experience at this particularly loaded moment.

On the NOW site this week, staff writer Kelsey Adams interviewed local artists who submitted their work to the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Portraits Of Resilience project. For this episode, Kelsey and Norm are joined by Amanta Scott, Deborah Farquharson, Katy Catchpole, Keith Eager and Mariana Topfstedt for a conversation about their art.

NOW’s Richard Trapunski and Gig Workers United president Jennifer Scott join Norm to discuss Uber’s new Flexible Work+ proposal, which would allow independent contractors to qualify for benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. But on whose terms?

NOW culture editor Radheyan Simonpillai and staff writer Kelsey Adams join Norm to discuss the uneasy relationship between activism and the sharing of traumatic videos on social media -- and how, as a result, people of colour are bombarded with images of racial violence wherever they turn.

An Israeli military strike on Gaza escalates tensions in the Middle East, official and unofficial sources try to spin the story on social media and people find their existing biases amplified. What are our algorithms feeding us? Researcher and activist Jamil Fiorino-Habib digs into the complexity of online engagement, and why the usual narratives aren’t working this time.

NOW political editor Enzo Di Matteo talks to Toronto lawyer Caryma Sa’d about the dangers posed by the anti-lockdown demonstrations that have been happening across Canada.

Anishnawbe author, playwright and former NOW journalist Drew Hayden Taylor talks to Norm about Going Native, his new documentary series about the ways in which Indigenous people are shaping and reclaiming their culture. Going Native airs Saturdays at 8:30 pm on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and is available to stream on the APTN lumi service.

NOW’s Kelsey Adams and Kevin Ritchie share their interviews with Jeff Bierk and Esmond Lee, two of the artists participating in this year’s Contact Photography Festival. You can find NOW’s Contact coverage online at nowtoronto.com/culture .

NOW’s Kelsey Adams talks to filmmaker Jennifer Holness about her new documentary Subjects of Desire (screening at Hot Docs through Sunday), which uses the 50th anniversary of the Miss Black America pageant to explore how global standards of beauty have changed, and what it means to be a Black woman in North America today.

This year's Hot Docs film festival introduces Citizen Minutes, a collection of eight short documentaries aimed at “celebrating and inspiring civic engagement” that’s streaming free for the length of the fest. Producers Lisa Jackson and Lauren Grant tell Norm how it all came together.