Showgirls of Pakistan from Toronto’s Nomad Films has been awarded the 2016 Corus-Hot Docs Forum Pitch Prize, the festival announced today.

The $10,000 award (formerly known as Shaw Media-Hot Docs Pitch Prize) is awarded to the best Canadian pitch at Hot Docs Forum, the Toronto doc festival’s international co-financing market, as voted by attending international buyers.

The doc, which was pitched by Saad Khan, Anam Abbas and Mark Johnston, looks at the difficult lives of dancers in Pakistan.

In total, 20 projects from 17 countries were presented at the Hot Docs Forum, with 12 female directors and 27 female producers attached to those projects.

At Hot Docs Deal Maker, the festival’s one-on-one pitch program, which took place May 3 to 5, 70 projects were pitched to 65 buyers at roughly 625 meetings over the course of the two days.

The Cuban Hat Award was presented to Happy Winter from Italian prodcos Indyca and Zenit Arti Audiovisive and directed by Giovanni Totaro. The recipient of the “real cash, no strings attached” award  is decided by ballots collected by Forum observers, and the award itself is funded through donations collected by passing the hat. This year, exactly $611.75 was collected in the hat and matched by Hot Docs for a grand total cash prize of $1,223.50.

The prize also includes two 2017 Hot Docs industry passes, one IDFA accreditation, two passes to Dok Leipzig and consulting sessions with industry experts. Cuban Hat Award founders Diego Briceno (of Montreal-based Cuibafilms and Pimiento) and Guilia Frati (of Montreal’s Zelectra Productions) announced the winner at the Hot Docs Forum’s closing reception.

Image courtesy of Indiegogo