In all, the Toronto-based documentary festival gave 10 awards with more than $72,000 in cash prizes.
A Film Unfinished took the best international feature award at Toronto’s Hot Docs on Friday night.
Yael Hersonski’s film deconstructs an infamous Nazi propaganda film about Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto. The jury said: “Yael Hersonski’s film is a profound exploration of the testimonial value of the cinematic image, based on found footage of a Nazi propaganda film shot in a Warsaw Ghetto. This is a film for the ages.”
A special jury prize for international feature went to Laura Poitras’ The Oath, about Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard.
The best Canadian feature award went to Shelley Saywell for In The Name of the Family, about honour killings of Muslim women. The special jury prize for Canadian feature went to John Zaritsky’s Leave Them Laughing, about a performer with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
In all, the documentary festival gave 10 awards with more than $72,000 in cash prizes. Other prize winners are Tomer Haymann’s I Shot My Love (best mid-length); Jonas Odell’s Tussilago (best short); Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol (HBO emerging artist award); Philip Lyall and Nimisha Mukerji’s 65_REDROSES (Don Haig award); Avanie Mohamed (Lindalee Tracey award); and Kim Longinotto (outstanding achievement award).
Jurors included film-makers Gonzalo Arijon, Chris Hegedus, Liz Mermin, IDFA’s Martijn te Pas and Havana Film Fsestival’s Alberto Ramos Ruiz.
At the Toronto Documentary Forum co-financing market, prize winners included Yung Chang’s The Fruit Hunters (about exotic fruit) and Angad Bhalla’s The House That Herman Built (about Black Panther activist Herman Wallace).
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