Patrick Shannon’s Saints and Warriors (Grand Scheme Productions, InnoNative, pictured) was among the Canadian winners at this year’s DOXA Documentary Festival in Vancouver.

Saints and Warriors follows the Skidegate Saints basketball team in Haida Gwaii, B.C.

The film received the Colin Low Award for Best Director, “for its beautifully layered narrative, its honest and intimate portrayal of contemporary Indigenous life and a final act that was deeply moving and offered us an inspiring hope for the future,” said jurors Chris Chong, Fabianny Deschamps and Corey Payette in a statement.

An honourable mention was given to Lyana Patrick’s Nechako – It Will Be A Big River Again (National Film Board of Canada, Experimental Forest Films, Lantern Films), which had its world premiere at the festival.

Director-producer Helen Lee’s 32-minute experimental documentary From Paris to Pyongyang was given an honourable mention in the best short category.

Damien Eagle Bear won the new Vancouver Film Studios Award for Best BC Director for #skoden. The award was given “for [#skoden‘s] clarity of directorial vision [and] its compassionate depiction of a much-seen but seldom-understood community,” said jurors Rame Ibrahim, Faith Sparrow-Crawford, Morgan Sears-Williams, Mimi Dejene and Brandon Wint.

Elizabeth Vibert and Chen Wang’s Aisha’s Story, produced by Vibert and Salam Barakat Guenette, received an honourable mention.

Lastly, Kim O’Bomsawin’s world-premiering They Are Sacred, produced by Andrée-Anne Frenette from O’Bomsawin’s Nikan Productions, was given the Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming.

Image courtesy of Ball is Life Entertainment