Blue Island by Chan Tze
Hot Docs 2022 wrapped May 8, bringing 225 films from 63 countries to audiences in Toronto cinemas and across Canada online. The 11-day hybrid festival featured 318 live screenings on nine screens at four venues across the city with 223 live filmmaker Q&As, and five special extended discussions with filmmakers and special guests as part of the Big Ideas Series.
“The past 11 days have been an exhilarating and deeply rewarding experience after a three-year pause to our in-person Festival,” shared Chris McDonald, President of Hot Docs. “We are proud of the multitude of rich, important, and timely stories that were shared at Hot Docs 2022, proving that documentary cinema matters more than ever. We are thankful to our volunteers, filmmakers, industry stakeholders and partners who helped make this year such a success, and we look forward to celebrating 30 years of Hot Docs at next year’s Festival.”
HOT DOCS AWARDS 2022
A total of thirteen Hot Docs awards were handed out May 7, including nine awards for Festival films in competition, of which seven were won by female filmmakers. $65,000 CDN in cash and prizes were given out.
The Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award was presented to Geographies of Solitude, directed by Jacquelyn Mills, in which self-taught naturalist and environmentalist Zoe Lucas shares her incredible life’s work. The award includes a $10,000 cash prize. The jury statement noted the film’s “deft ability to reveal the complex intersections between the natural world and humanity’s excesses on a singular isolated island through strongly crafted and arresting visual and aural storytelling”
The Best International Feature Documentary Award was given to Blue Island by Chan Tze Woon), a hybrid film that takes stock of Hong Kong and the region in the aftermath of pro-documentary protests and the subsequent crackdown. The award includes a $10,000 cash prize. The jury statement referenced “its evocative use of re-enactments interwoven with traditional documentary forms to create a rich, socially-grounded cinematic tapestry”
Hot Docs is an Academy Award qualifying festival for feature documentaries and, as the winner of the Best International Feature Documentary Award, Blue Island will qualify for consideration in the Best Documentary Feature category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided they comply with Academy rules.
The DGC Special Jury Prize – Canadian Feature Documentary was presented to Zaynê Akyol’s Rojek, a journey into Syrian detention centres that captures revealing conversations with key members of the Islamic State. The award includes a $5,000 cash prize. Batata, directed by Noura Kevorkian received an Honourable Mention.
The Special Jury Prize – International Feature Documentary was given to The Wind Blows the Border, directed by Laura Faerman and Marina Weis, a film charting an Indigenous woman’s dangerous fight to keep her community’s ancestral land safe from the expansion of agribusiness in her native Brazil. The award includes a $5,000 cash prize.
The Earl A. Glick Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award, which includes a $3,000 cash prize courtesy of the Earl A. Glick Family, was presented to director Jacquelyn Mills for Geographies of Solitude.
The Emerging International Filmmaker Award is given to an international filmmaker whose film in competition is their first or second feature-length film. It was presented to Polish director Bogna Kowalczyc for Boylesque, the portrait of an openly gay 82-year-old Polish man living out loud in his palpably homophobic country. The award includes a $3,000 cash prize.
The award for Best Mid-Length Documentary was presented to Rewind & Play directed by Alain Gomis, a revisiting of an agonizing 1969 interview of jazz visionary Thelonious Monk for French television that crackles with ferocity in the face of patronization.
The Best International Short Documentary Award was presented to More Than I Remember by Amy Bench, a lushly animated documentary following the journey of 14-year-old Mugeni Ornella as she and her family are separated and displaced by civil strife in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The award includes a $3,000 cash prize. In the category, the jury also acknowledged My Disability Roadmap by Dan Habib, Samuel Habib with an Honourable Mention.
The Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary was presented to Perfecting the Art of Longing by Kitra Cahana, the portrait of a quadriplegic rabbi in a long-term-care facility cut off from his loved ones during the lockdown, filmed remotely by his daughter. The award includes a $3,000 cash prize courtesy of John and Betty Youson. Cahana.” The jury also acknowledged The Benevolents by Sarah Baril Gaudet with an Honourable Mention.
Hot Docs is an Academy Award qualifying festival for short documentaries and, as winners of the Best International Short Documentary Award and the Betty Youson Award for Best Canadian Short Documentary Award respectively, More Than I Remember and Perfecting the Art of Longing will qualify for consideration in the Documentary Short Subject category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided they comply with Academy rules.
The Scotiabank Docs For Schools Student’s Choice Award went to Navalny by Daniel Roher, the riveting doc-thriller centred around Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The award is given to the Festival film in the Docs For Schools education program that receives the highest rating as determined by a student poll and comes with a $5,000 cash prize, courtesy of Scotiabank.
Award-winning Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan received the 2022 Outstanding Achievement Award. Patwardhan’s seminal work was featured in the Outstanding Achievement Retrospective Program at this year’s Festival.
The Lindalee Tracey Award, which honours an emerging Canadian filmmaker with a passionate point of view, a strong sense of social justice and a sense of humour, was presented to Iranian Canadian filmmaker Avazeh Shahnavaz. Shahnavaz will receive a $5,000 cash prize courtesy of the Lindalee Tracey Fund, $5,000 in post-production services from SIM, and a hand-blown glass sculpture by Andrew Kuntz, specially commissioned to honour Lindalee.
Toronto-based producer Mila Aung-Thwin, producer of Midwives and co-founder of Montreal-based production company EyeSteelFilm, received the Don Haig Award, announced at the beginning of the Festival. The award is given to an outstanding independent Canadian producer with a film in the Festival in recognition of their creative vision, entrepreneurship and track record for nurturing emerging talent and comes with a $5,000 cash prize, courtesy of the Don Haig Foundation.
AUDIENCE AWARDS
The Hot Docs Audience Award for Best Feature Doc was awarded to Eternal Spring by Jason Loftus.
The Audience Award for Mid-Length Documentary was given to Sexual Healing by Elsbeth Fraanje, in which a middle-aged disabled woman explores what intimacy means to her.
The top short film, winning the Audience Award for Short Documentary, was Dad Can Dance by Jamie Ross, the self-affirming story of a son who discovers his father’s long-buried secret passion for ballet.
The Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, which recognizes the top Canadian feature as determined by audience poll and awards cash prizes totaling $50,000 to the top three Canadian features in that poll, was May 8. Eternal Spring by Jason Loftus, in which exiled Chinese illustrator Daxiong recreates the daring hack of Chinese state television by activists, was placed first and received the top prize of $25,000 CDN.
Okay! (The ASD Band Film) by Mark Bone, a backstage look at a band of four talented autistic musicians as they prepare for their first live show, placed second and received a $15,000 CDN prize.
Unloved: Huronia’s Forgotten Children by Barri Cohen, a searing account of abuse inside Ontario’s oldest government-run home for disabled children, was placed third and awarded $10,000 CDN.
