The Holier It Gets, by Jennifer Baichwal, took home the awards for best independent Canadian film and best cultural film at the seventh annual Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
"This year's festival has been an overwhelming success," Hot Docs executive director Chris McDonald said on the weekend as the week-long festival wrapped up. "For the second year running, our public attendance doubled over the previous year, and we hosted over 1,000 international delegates." The event drew an audience of about 15,000 last year.
For The Holier It Gets, Baichwal, who made the Emmy-winning Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, filmed her family's journey from Canada to India to scatter the ashes of her father, Krisna, in the Ganges.
Runner-up for best Canadian film went to Zyklon Portrait, a 13-minute short produced and directed by Elida Schogt, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who traces her family's story via a study of how Zyklon-B, a pesticide, became the Nazi death-gas. Zyklon Portrait also won the award for best short and shared the Vision TV Humanitarian Award.
As well, D. A. Pennebaker ( Don't Look Back, The War Room) and his wife and filmmaking partner Chris Hegedus were recipients of the third annual Hot Docs Lifetime Achievement Award.
Other film awards include: Best Feature Avant le jour (Before Day Breaks) Director: Lucie Lambert Best Arts A la recherche de Louis Archambault Director: Werner Volkmer Best Biography The Life and Times of Dr. Henry Morgentaler Director: Audrey Mehler Best History Unwanted Soldiers Director: Jari Osborne Best Political Images of a Dictatorship Director: Patricio Henriquez Best Science/Technology/Environment Pandemic: Case of the Killer Flu Director: Elliott Halpern Best Social Issue Laugh in the Dark Director: Justine Pimlott Best Series Turning Points of History Series Producers: Laszlo Barna, Frank Savoie, Alan Mendelsohn Vision TV Humanitarian Award (two winners) Village of Widows Director: Peter Blow Zyklon Portrait Director: Elida Schogt The Critics' Prize for the Best International Documentary (two winners) Godard à la télé Director: Michel Royer Long Night's Journey into Day Director: Deborah Hoffmann, Frances Reid