U.S. documentary The Cove has won the coveted Hot Docs Audience Award in Toronto.

The film, which also won the same honour at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, follows former dolphin-trainer turned activist Richard O'Barry, who is best known for capturing and training the dolphins for the Flipper television series.

O'Barry now works to shed light on a secret cove near the small Japanese town of Taiji where dolphins are hunted: some captured and others killed en masse — evidence of which was captured during covert trips by the filmmakers to the forbidden cove.

The Canadian-made film 65—RedRoses, about an online network of girls who suffer from cystic fibrosis placed second among audiences at the annual Toronto festival, which ended Sunday.

The third-place honour went to the Canadian-Czech Republic co-production Inside Hana's Suitcase, which follows a Japanese teacher and her class as they unraveled the story of a Holocaust victim through her battered suitcase.

Before this year's event began, festival programmers had touted 2009 as the strongest Hot Docs lineup they had ever assembled.

Following the final curtain, festival organizers estimate that 122,000 people attended during the 11-day event (a 42 per cent increase over 2008).

With files from The Canadian Press