Hot Docs: ‘The Closer We Get’ Earns Top Prize

British director Karen Guthrie‘s The Closer We Get took the top honor on Friday night at the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival.

Guthrie’s film about a 50-year marriage as told through the eyes of a reluctantly-dutiful daughter took the best international feature documentary trophy and a $10,000 prize. After eight days of premieres and deals at Hot Docs, the special jury prize for an international feature documentary went to Ukrainian director Ostap Kostyuk‘s The Living Fire, about three generations of shepherds struggling with an encroaching outside world.

The Hot Docs jury also gave an honorable mention in the Special Jury Prize category to Hot Sugar’s Cold World, American director Adam Lough‘s film about electronic musician Hot Sugar. Elsewhere, French director Evangelia Kranioti‘s Exotica, Erotica Ect. claimed the best emerging international filmmaker award for her film about a former prostitute lyrically recalling encounters with lonely sailors.

And the award for best mid-length documentary went to Soren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farah‘s Warriors From the North, while a special mention went to the Adam Benzine‘s Lanzmann, the Canadian film about Shoah director Claude Lanzmann that was picked up this week by HBO for a 2016 U.S. TV broadcast.

Meanwhile, the best Canadian feature documentary award was earned by Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World, by director Charles Wilkinson; the best short doc award winner was Territory, by director Eleanor Mortimer; and the 2015 Lindalee Tracey Award went to the Canadian film Mina Walking, by Yosef Baraki, which bowed in Berlin.

Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, wraps on Sunday in Toronto.