Jump to contentJump to footer

House of Hope and Paikar awarded at Hot Docs

Dutch documentaries House of Hope by Marjolein Busstra and Paikar by Dawood Hilmandi have won awards at the Hot Docs festival in Canada. Both projects have received support from the Netherlands Film Fund.

The 33rd edition of the Hot Docs festival took place in Toronto from April 23rd until May 3rd. Two Dutch productions bagged awards at the festival: House of Hope and Paikar. Both projects featured at the inaugural edition of NLWave and premiered at last year's edition of IDFA.

House of Hope

House of Hope by Marjolein Busstra was crowned Hot Docs Best International Feature Documentary at the Canadian festival. The film, directed by Marjolein Busstra and produced by 100% Film and Philistine Films, focuses on a Waldorf school in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem. The school staff attempt to provide a safe haven for young Palestinian students.

The Hot Docs jury report reads: 'A powerful and unsentimental film that bears witness to a family-run Waldorf school in the West Bank and its profound commitment to nurturing the humanity of children. For its clear-eyed portrait of educators whose quiet everyday resilience stubbornly insists on hope under the shadow of occupation and genocide, the jury enthusiastically presents Marjolein Busstra with the Hot Docs Best International Feature Documentary award for House of Hope.'

Paikar

Director Dawood Hilmandi received the Hot Docs Emerging International Filmmaker Award for Paikar. In the film, produced by BALDR Film, Hilmandi returns to Iran to reconcile with his father.

The Hot Docus jury report reads: 'For its poetic meditation on transgenerational trauma that evocatively navigates the entanglement of memory, war and exile from a deeply personal perspective—initiating a moving dialogue across a lifetime of displacement, the Jury presents the Hot Docs Emerging International Filmmaker Award to Dawood Hilmandi for Paikar.'