Hot Docs to Award 5 CDN Directors
by Staff
(March 31, 2021 – Toronto, ON) Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival, has announced an important change in its annual Rogers Audience Award. Introduced at the 2017 Hot Docs Festival, the award and cash prize have traditionally been given to the Canadian feature documentary that received the highest average rating as determined by audience poll. However, as this year’s Festival is being presented virtually for the second time, things had to change. This year, courtesy of the Rogers Group of Funds, the Award will honour the top five Canadian documentaries determined by a poll, which will be open to viewers across Canada for the first time. Each director will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000 CDN.
“Since the launch of the Rogers Audience Award, the Award has gone to incredibly creative, passionate, and hardworking Canadian filmmakers to applaud their documentary films,” said Robin Mirsky, Executive Director, Rogers Group of Funds. “We are thrilled to continue working alongside Hot Docs Festival to celebrate and recognize Canadian producers and directors.”
“We’re so pleased to be able to partner with Rogers Group of Funds for a fifth year to award these directors and their films with this incredible cash prize,” said Erin Lau, Managing Director of Hot Docs. “Rogers Group of Funds has always been such a strong supporter of Canadian documentary, and we thank them for their continued commitment to championing the work and cinematic vision of Canada’s filmmakers.”
Feature-length documentaries screening as part of Hot Docs Festival that have a Canadian director and are CAVCO certified will be eligible for the Rogers Audience Award. Online voting will take place during the Festival, April 29 – May 9, with electronic ballots being available to audience members across Canada who stream the eligible films. One ballot per stream will be issued. Ballots will be tallied and the winning five films with the highest average scores will be announced at a special online event streaming Sunday, May 9, at 7:00 pm ET at hotdocs.ca.
This year’s Hot Docs Festival, online at hotdocs.ca, runs from April 29-May 9
SOURCE: Hot Docs
