The 33rd Hot Docs festival (April 23-May 3) wrapped its 2026 edition over the weekend as organisers handed out the audience and jury awards.
The Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary and an approximately USD $36,704 (CAD $50,000) cash prize went to Rico King’s Nekai Walks about Nekai Foster, a 16-year-old who was shot while walking home in Toronto and defied the odds with his recovery.
Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor (USA-Pal-Den-Malay) won the Hot Docs Audience Award after finishing top of the audience poll of 20 films. The film premiered in Sundance and follows a trio of Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian doctors from the US working in Gaza. Nekai Walks placed fifth.
On Friday (May 1) Hot Docs awarded its juried prizes. Select winners include Hot Docs International Feature Documentary House Of Hope (Neth-Pal) from Marjolein Busstra, about a West Bank elementary school that teaches non-violent resistance, and Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature Documentary Saigon Story from Oscar nominee Kim Nguyen exploring family secrets in the wake of the Vietnam War.
The Hot Docs Emerging International Filmmaker Award went to Dawood Hilmandi for Paikar (Neth) about a personal journey to Afghanistan during the pandemic, and the Hot Docs Earl A. Glick Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award to Sébastien Trahan for Code Of Misconduct, which charts how an investigative journalist’s work led to the trial of five Canadian professional hockey players charged with sexual assault.
The festival awarded approximately USD $49,180 (CAD $67,000) in juried prizes. As announced earlier in the festival, Canadian producer Jennifer Holness received the Hot Docs Don Haig Award. In total, the festival featured 173 screenings. Hot Docs Forum winners were announced last week.
“Together, our community came out to enthusiastically support documentary filmmaking and global storytelling in a meaningful way, engaging in deep discussion and gaining a greater understanding of the world we share together,” said the festival’s executive director Diana Sanchez.
No comments yet