‘Someone Lives Here’ takes home top prize at Hot Docs film festival

TORONTO – A film about a young carpenter who built shelters for the homeless won 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.