Alanis Obomsawin and Ron Mann will be honored for their decades of documentary making this spring at Hot Docs. Obomsawin will receive 2009’s outstanding achievement award, while Mann will be the subject of the annual Focus On retrospective.

The Mann retrospective will recount the Toronto filmmaker’s 25 years of docs on alternative cultures, including 1988’s Comic Book Confidential, 1999’s marijuana-minded Grass and his latest, Know Your Mushrooms, about the world of fungi.

Obomsawin’s win will also include a retrospective of her award-winning films, devoted to social issues concerning Canada’s First Nations communities. Since 1967’s Christmas at Moose Factory, Obomsawin has directed 35 films, including Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child, which helped change government policy regarding First Nations child welfare.

The films included in each retrospective will be announced in March. The Hot Docs film fest runs April 30 to May 10.