Shadow Girl (pictured), a documentary about Chilean-Canadian filmmaker Maria Teresa Larrain’s descent into blindness, has picked up the $40,000 Shaw Media-Hot Docs Forum Pitch Prize at the Canadian festival’s annual pitching event.

The prize was only open to Canadian projects pitching at the Forum, and the winner was voted for by commissioners in attendance.

The film, which was pitched on the first day of the two-day event, sees Larrain – the subject and director of the film – exploring issues of blindness and retelling her own experience of losing her sight.

The project already has backing from Britdoc and YLE, and is seeking $141,000 in funding, with $201,000 already in place for a total budget of $342,000.

Meanwhile, the Cuban Hat prize – comprised of donations from Hot Docs Forum attendees, open to all projects pitching at the Forum, and decided by a popular vote from attendees and observers – went to Hanna Polak’s project Svalka: Yula’s Journey.

The project wins just over $1,690 (in assorted international currencies) and two free tickets for next year’s Forum.

The film, 11 years in the making, follows a young Russian girl and her friends, who live on a garbage dump just outside Moscow.

Finally, the Cuban Hat Decision Maker award, a popular vote for the best commissioning editor at the Forum (based on their project feedback and comments over the event’s two days) went to BBC ‘Storyville’ editor Nick Fraser.