(Toronto) The documentary series Lac-Mégantic – Ceci n’est pas une accident, by Philippe Falardeau, won the Audience Award on Sunday at the Canadian documentary festival Hot Docs in Toronto.
The four-episode television series, which chronicles the causes of one of Canada’s worst rail disasters, ranked first in the 30th annual Hot Docs viewership poll.
The series is currently presented on Videotron’s pay channel Vrai, but Quebecor has decided to offer the first month free if the customer subscribes before June 1.
In addition, the Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary went to Zack Russell’s Someone Lives Here. The documentary looks at a young carpenter who built shelters for the homeless.
When Spring Came to Bucha, a German-Ukrainian film about what happened after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the small Ukrainian town of Boutcha, near Kyiv, won the audience award for a medium-length documentary.
Finally, an American film about a biologist’s efforts to protect desert tortoise populations from crows, Eco-Hack!, won the Audience Award for a short documentary.
Hot Docs presented 214 films from 72 countries during the 11-day festival in Toronto this year.