The first votes are in for the Hot Docs audience award. Okay! (The ASD Band Film) leads the first heat as Hot Docs released the top twenty films according to audience votes. The feature documentary by Mark Bone profiles the four autistic members of The ASD Band. As a Canadian feature, The ASD Band also leads the Rogers Audience Award race. The runner-up in the Canadian features race is Hot Docs’ opening night film, Into the Weeds.
In second place in the overall race is Crows Are White, directed by Ahsen Nadeem in which the Muslim filmmaker attends a Buddhist monastery in Japan. Showing in third is the archival doc Fire of Love, directed by Sara Dosa, which brought its tale of love and volcanoes to Hot Docs last night.
Votes for the Hot Docs Audience Award are cast by screening attendees who log on to hotdocs.ca/pub/vote according to the unique url provided with their ticket. They then rate the films from one to five. The top twenty includes both shorts and features.
The top 20 films in the Hot Docs Audience Award race on April 30 are:
- Okay! (The ASD Band Film)
- Crows Are White
- Fire of Love
- Patty vs. Patty
- The Balcony Movie
- Crotch Stories
- Attica
- A History of the World According to Getty Images
- Still Working 9 to 5
- Once Upon a Time in Uganda
- A House Made of Splinters
- Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company
- Blue Island
- Dio: Dreamers Never Die
- The Body Is a House of Familiar Rooms
- I Am Trying to Remember
- My Two Voices
- This Is Endometriosis
- For Real
- Nasim
