Hot Docs: Marjolein Busstra’s ‘House of Hope’ Palestinian Resistance Pic Takes Top Jury Prize
Marjolein Busstra’s House of Hope , a film about a Palestinian couple teaching young students non-violent resistance in an elementary school in the occupied West Bank, picked up the best international feature documentary prize at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Friday night.
The top jury prize win at the festival means Busstra’s film, a Palestine-Netherlands co-production that world premiered at IDFA in Amsterdam, will qualify for consideration in the best documentary feature category at the Academy Awards.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
And Hot Docs closed its 2026 edition on the weekend with American Doctor , Director Poh Si Teng’s Sundance title about three U.S. doctors performing surgeries at the Nasser Medical Complex while the Gaza war raged on, and risking their lives to do so, taking the top audience award prize.
The first runner-up in the poll of ordinary Hot Docs fest-goers is Steal This Story, Please! , the documentary about dogged political journalist Amy Goodman from directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, while the second-runner up is A Fox Under a Pink Moon , the IDFA top prize winner from directors Mehrdad Oskouei and Soraya Akhalaghi and about a 16-year artist’s five year journey to escape Afghanistan to reach her mother in Austria.
Other jury prize winners at Hot Docs include the best Canadian feature documentary prize going to Saigon Story: Two Shootings in the Forest Kingdom, a film about two families connected by Eddie Adam’s iconic photo from Oscar-nominated director Kim Nguyen. And the best emerging international filmmaker trophy went to Paikar director Dawood Hilmandi, another film from the Netherlands where the filmmaker from exile in Amsterdam reflects on life as a refugee after having to flee Iran and Afghanistan.
Other winners include the special jury prize for a Canadian feature documentary going to Banchi Hanuse for Ceremony, a film about an indigenous community in Canada’s north that earned an audience prize at SXSW, while the special jury prize for an international feature documentary went to Heidrun Holzfeind, for The 49th Year , where an anarchist imprisoned since 1980 reflects on his radical past via letters.
Elsewhere, the best social impact documentary trophy went to directors Chul Young Cho, Shin Wan Kim and Jong Woo Kim for The Seoul Guardians, a film from South Korea set around protests over martial law being declared in 2024 and during a night of chaos collective citizen resistance.
May 4, 8 a.m.Updated with top audience award winners voted on by ordinary Hot Docs fest-goers added to the story.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Sign up for THR's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .
