Hot Docs 2017 wrapped this Sunday, but not before Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, produced by Montreal’s Rezolution Pictures, claimed the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary.
Director Catherine Bainbridge and co-director Alfonso Maioran took to the stage at the Hot Docs Cinema to accept the prize. The project has proved a hot property since its debut at Sundance 2017, with New York-based distributor Kino Lorber taking the U.S. rights and Bell Media acquiring the Canadian broadcast rights for The Movie Network (TMN).
Hot Docs also doled out a number of other awards on Friday evening, with the National Film Board (NFB) doc Unarmed Verses, directed by Charles Officer and produced by Lea Marin, nabbing the Best Canadian Feature Documentary prize and a $10,000 cash prize along with it. The feature-length project tells the story of a Toronto community facing imposed relocation.
Elsewhere, the special jury prize for a Canadian doc went to Canada/Chile copro Resurrecting Hassan, directed and produced by Carlo Guillermo Proto, while the emerging Canadian filmmaker award went to Montreal-based François Jacob for his project A Moon of Nickel and Ice.
On the international front, the special jury prize went to A Cambodian Spring (U.K.), directed and produced by Chris Kelly, and the best documentary prize was awarded to The Other Side of the Wall (Spain), directed by Pau Ortiz and produced by María Nova López, Emiliano Altuna, Tatiana García, Carlos Rossini. Norwegian director Egil Håskjold Larsen, meanwhile, won the emerging international filmmaker prize for his doc 69 Minutes of 86 Days (Norway).
Two other Canadian documentarians were also feted by the festival, with Montreal-based producer Daniel Cross of EyeSteel Film winning the Don Haig Award and Toronto-based Thyrone Tommy claiming the Lindalee Tracey Award for his film Mariner.
In the other awards, the best mid-length doc prize went to Asaf Sudry and Tali Shemesh-directed project Death in the Terminal (Israel), best short went to Tamta Gabrichidze-directed Sovdagari (Georgia). British filmmaker Tony Palmer also won the 2017 outstanding achievement award.