Vivek Chaudhary’s I, Poppy, a film about an activist son fighting corrupt officials and systemic oppression in India, while his mother tends the family poppy farm, picked up the best international feature prize at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday night.
The top jury prize win at the festival means Chaudhary’s film, which world premiered at Hot Docs, will qualify for consideration in the best documentary feature category at the Academy Awards. The win for I, Poppy also marks the second year in a row where a protest documentary from India won the top jury prize at Hot Docs.
Last year, Nishta Jain’s Farming the Revolution, a film about Indian farmers rising up against new laws, took home the Hot Docs best international feature documentary honor. Other winners this year at Hot Docs included the special jury prize for the international feature documentary going to director Sasha Wortzel’s River of Grass, a film about environmental challenges and other issues around the Florida Everglades.
The best emerging international filmmaker trophy went to Amilcar Infante and Sebastian Gonzalez Mendez, directors of Unwelcomed, a doc about a migrant crisis in Chile after the country’s most violent anti-immigrant protest, sparked by an influx of migrants from Venezuela. And the best Canadian feature documentary award went to director Amalie Atkins’ Agatha’s Almanac, a portrait of a simple life led by a fiercely independent Mennonite woman on her ancestral farm in southern Manitoba.
In other prize-giving, the special jury prize for a Canadian feature documentary was given to Denis Cote for Paul. The Quebec director’s documentary about a young man who does domestic chores for dominant women to cope with depression and social anxiety had a world premiere in Berlin.
The best social impact documentary trophy went to Talal Afifi and Giovanna Stopponi for Khartoum, a doc about displaced Sudanese filmmakers helping five of their fellow citizens to re-enact on screen their nation’s descent into civil war.
In all, 14 awards were handed out in Toronto on Friday night as the Hot Docs festival continues through Sunday, May 4.