KONELĪNE: our land beautiful and The Prison in Twelve Landscapes were two of the Canadian films honoured at the 2016 Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival.

In total, 12 awards and $67,000 in cash prizes were handed out at the Hot Docs Awards, which took place May 6 at Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto.

KONELĪNE, directed by Nettie Wild and produced by Vancouver’s Canada Wild Productions, took home Best Canadian Feature Documentary along with a $10,000 cash prize. The documentary tells the story of the Tahltan First Nation who have lived in northwestern B.C. for thousands of years.

The Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature Documentary went to The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, directed by Brett Story and produced by Oh Ratface Films. Story was awarded $5,000 for her film about the communities and industries that have developed alongside America’s prisons.

Sébastien Rist and Aude Leroux-Lévesque won the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award for Living With Giants, which tells the story of an Inuk hunter living in a remote community. The award, which includes a $3,000 cash prize, is given to a first or second-time Canadian filmmaker with a feature in Hot Docs’ Canadian Spectrum program. The Hot Docs jury also gave Ali Kazimi’s Random Acts of Legacy an honourable mention.

Michael Chen received the Lindalee Tracey Award, which is given to an emerging Canadian filmmaker with a strong sense of social justice – and a sense of humour.  The award includes a $5,000 cash prize, $5,000 in post-production services from Technicolor and a hand-blown glass sculpture by Andrew Kuntz, commissioned to honour Lindalee.

Best International Feature Documentary Award went to Brothers (Norway), directed by Aslaug Holm and produced by Tore Buvarp. The $10,000 award was sponsored by the Panicaro Foundation.

Todd and Jedd Wider’s God Knows Where I Am (U.S.) won $5,000 and the Special Jury Prize for International Feature for their film about a woman who starved to death in a new Hampshire farmhouse.

Director Mike Day took home the Emerging International Filmmaker Award for his film The Islands and the Whales (UK, Denmark).

Best Mid-Length Documentary went to Dugma: The Button (Norway), directed by Paul S. Refsdal, with Aaron Schock’s La Laguna (U.S., Mexico) receiving an honourable mention.

Mickey Duzyj’s The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere (U.S.) was awarded Best Short Documentary, with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s What Happened to Her receiving an honourable mention.