The DOXA Documentary Film Festival wrapped up for another year last weekend with a closing night screening of Hepi Mita’s Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen.
After screening 82 films from around the world the adjudicators determined the recipients of the 2019 DOXA Awards. The three awards were presented prior to the closing screening and went to the following recipients;
Nigel Moore Award for Youth Programming was presented to Call Me Intern, directed by Nathalie Berger and Leo David Hyde. Jury members Anna Hetherington, Steven Hawkins, Jacob Saltzberg, Maya Biderman and Teagan Dobson stated of the film: “Call Me Intern’s raw, unfettered depiction of the struggle to break into industry is both poignant and devastatingly familiar for millennials like us today.”
DOXA Short Documentary Award went to Victory Arroyo’s Time is Out of Joint . Jury members Aaron Zeghers, Joella Cabalu and Ananya Ohri awarded the film for its “unconventional style and approach that pushes the tradition of documentary storytelling into new territory.” The jury also awarded an Honourable Mention to Haven directed by Colin Askey “for its sensitive and humanizing approach on a life-changing resource in the midst of an urgent crisis.”
Colin Low Award for Canadian Documentary was given to Tasha Hubbard’s nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up. Jury members Leon Lee, Peg Campbell and John Bolton described the film: “Focusing on the Boushie family’s fight for justice in a rigged legal system, past treaty betrayals, and the legacy of residential schools – the film demonstrates the resilience and strength needed to make a safe future for Indigenous children.” “For its ambition, its stark aesthetic, and its compassionate yet unflinching approach to its subject matter of humanity crushed by capitalism, corrupt government and organized crime”, the jury also awarded an Honourable Mention to Julien Elie’s Dark Suns.
DOXA Feature Documentary Award was presented to Ian Soroka’s Greetings From Free Forests. Jurors Gregory Coyes, Sean Farnel and Michèle Smolkin said of the film: “The measured, cinematic beauty of these mountain forests, and their vast, underlying limestone caves, revealed a receptacle for both personal memories, and dramatic human history.” Honourable Mention was also given to Hassan Fazili and Emelie Mahdavian’s Midnight Traveler for its “courageous and genuine storytelling”. The jurors were impressed by “the filmmaker’s attempt to escape persecution from his own country and to find a safe haven for his family.”
The DOXA Festival team take some well deserved time to unwind and debrief before they start to work on DOXA 2020 and a new line-up of great films from around the world