Hot Docs Announces Award Winners

TORONTO, April 30: The 14th annual Hot Docs
Canadian International Documentary Festival awarded more than C$50,000 in cash
prizes to six films in official competition, along with a slew of other awards,
on Friday, April 27, at a ceremony at the Isabel Bader Theatre.

The Hot Docs Awards Presentation was hosted by documentary
filmmaker and television journalist Avi Lewis. In the Best Canadian Feature
Documentary category, the award went to Bryan Friedman’s 90-minute The
Bodybuilder and I, a look at the Canadian
director’s complicated, estranged relationship with his elderly, body-building
father. In addition to the award, Friedman was also presented with a C$5,000
cash prize courtesy of the Documentary Channel.

The Special Jury Prize in the Canadian Feature Documentary category was awarded to Serge Giguère’s Driven by
Dreams, an inspiring look at a group of
seniors who’ve embraced their twilight years with passion and a lust for life.
In addition to the award, Giguère was also presented with a C$5,000 FAP prize,
courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada. In the Best International
Feature Documentary category, the award went to Ulrike Franke and Michael
Loeken’s Losers and Winners from
Germany, an examination of the collision of cultures and the impact of
globalization as a German smelting plant is disassembled to be rebuilt in
China. In addition to the award, Franke and Loeken were also presented with a
C$5,000 cash prize courtesy of Hot Docs.

The Special Jury Prize in the International Feature
Documentary category was awarded to Michael
Skolnik’s Without the King (U.S., 84
minutes), a revealing look at the growing civil unrest in the impoverished
nation of Swaziland, Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy. The Best
Mid-Length Documentary Award—for films 30-59 minutes in length—was
presented to Johanna Lunn’s Forgiveness: Stories For Our Time (Canada, 56 minutes), a powerful and personal
exploration of anger, grief and the process of forgiveness through four people
whose lives have been ripped apart by murder and terrorism. The Best Short
Documentary Award—for films up to 29 minutes in length—was
presented to Arturo Cabanas’ Man Up, a snapshot of a father who is attempting to raise his son to be a
soldier.

The Don Haig Award—an annual prize awarded to an
emerging Canadian director whose work has bridged the documentary and fiction
filmmaking worlds—was presented to Toronto-based filmmaker
Hubert Davis, whose work includes the Academy Award-nominated short documentary
Hardwood and the fiction film Aruba. A C$10,000 cash prize accompanied the award.

The inaugural Lindalee Tracey Award—founded in memory
of the creative, socially engaged documentary director and awarded to an
emerging Canadian filmmaker—was presented to Edmonton-based Trevor
Anderson whose work includes the short films Rugburn and Rock Pockets. Accompanying the Lindalee Tracey Award is a C$5,000 cash prize. Also
at the ceremony, the Hot Docs Board of Directors presented acclaimed Dutch
director Heddy Honigmann with the annual Outstanding Achievement Award. As part
of the honor, Honigmann’s work was featured in a retrospective program during
the Festival. She also served as a special guest in the final Hot Docs Talks
panel, “The Art of the Interview,” on Saturday, April 28.

Finally, in addition to the above awards, prizes associated
with Rendezvous—Hot Docs’ service which arranges for one-on-one pitch
meetings between producers with projects in development and commissioning
editors—were also announced. The OMNI Prize for Best Third
Language/Ethno-Cultural Pitch—which grants C$10,000 in development money
via the OMNI Diversity Television Independent Producers Fund—was awarded
to 1001 Performances, pitched by Josh
Miller of Panacea Entertainment. The CBC Newsworld Camera Prize—which
provides a C$10,000 camera rental package for the best pitch received by the
CBC—was awarded to Sounds Like a Revolution, pitched by Summer Preney of Deltatime Productions.
The NBC News Archive Prize for the best pitch at Rendezvous—which awards
C$2,000 worth of rights for footage licensed by NBC News Archives—was
awarded to Granny Power, pitched
by Isabelle Couture of Les Films de L’Isle.