Toronto carpenter Khaleel Seivwright builds a tiny shelter in his workshop in a handout from the documentary "Someone Lives Here." The film about Seivwright's effort to build housing for the homeless won the top prize at Toronto's Hot Docs film festival Sunday. "Someone Lives Here," directed by Zack Russell, took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Hot Docs **MANDATORY CREDIT**
TORONTO – A film about a young carpenter who built shelters the homeless won the top prize at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival Sunday.
“Someone Lives Here,” directed by Zack Russell, took home the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary.
Meanwhile, “Lac-Mégantic – This is Not an Accident,” a four-part series that chronicles the causes of one of Canada’s worst rail disasters, placed first in the overall audience poll, earning it the Hot Docs Audience Award.
“When Spring Came to Bucha,” a German-Ukrainian film about what happened after Russian troops withdrew from a small town near Kyiv, won the Audience Award for Mid-Length Documentary.
An American film about a conservation biologist’s efforts to protect desert tortoise populations from ravens, “Eco-Hack!”, was recognized with the Audience Award for Short Documentary.
Hot Docs celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, and showed 214 films from 72 countries during the 11-day festival.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2023.
