(Toronto) A documentary chronicling the resistance of the Wet’suwet’en people to the construction of a pipeline on their ancestral lands in British Columbia won the People’s Choice Award for best Canadian documentary at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto .
Yintah (“earth”, in Wet’suwet’en) won his prize, with a $50,000 grant, at the closing of the Toronto festival on Sunday evening, after 11 days of activities.
The documentary, directed by Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell and Michael Toledano, documents a decade of growing resistance to Wet’suwet’en land exploitation that led to protests culminating in 2020 with rail blockades in several provinces.
Among the other prizes awarded during the final days of the Hot Docs festival, the Special Jury Prize for a Canadian Feature Documentary was awarded to Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, about a black transgender musical artist from Toronto who faded from the spotlight at the height of her fame.
The award for best Canadian feature documentary went to The Soldier’s Lagoon, which traces Simon Bolivar’s journey through Colombia. The prize for best international feature documentary was awarded to Farming the Revolution (India-Norway), on the unprecedented protests by Indian farmers against the laws of their new government.
In the best Canadian short documentary category, Montreal director Isabelle Grignon-Francke received a special mention from the jury for The Fireworkwhich was presented in November at the Montreal International Documentary Meetings.
Quebec director Laurence Lévesque received the Earl A. Glick Award given to an emerging filmmaker, for her feature-length documentary Okurimono.
Hot Docs says it has awarded a total of $172,000 in scholarships and prizes to filmmakers in the various categories this year.