by Nathaniel R
The first wave of the bridge festivals, taking us from summer to the fall film season and thereby kicking off the Oscar race have ended with TIFF wrapping hot on the heels of Venice and Telluride. It's time to update the Oscar charts which we're busy with at the moment and will start posting very soon. While you wait for those updates, here are the winners from TIFF. While TIFF is a non-competitive festival unlike the other "big five" festivals (Sundance, Venice, Canes, Berlin) they do have audience awards as well as a few juries for very specific things, just not the main slate. Their "People's Choice" audience awards get a lot of press partially because the winners often go on to Oscar nominations and sometimes wins.
AUDIENCE AWARDS
PEOPLE'S CHOICE: The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
runners up: Women Talking (Sarah Polley) and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)...
Given that this is a crowd-pleaser award that generally doesn't go to really dour stuff, it's significant that Sarah Polley came in second with her talky Mennonite sexual assault drama. MGM/UA must be feeling good about the Oscar prospects by now.
PEOPLE'S CHOICE DOCUMENTARY: Black Ice (Hubert Davis)
runners up: 752 is Not a Number (Babak Payami) and Maya and the Wave (Stephanie Johnes)
I was just talking with Glenn about hockey documentaries and how many of them exist. It's practically a subgenre of doc. Black Ice is about systemic racism in the sport.
PEOPLE'S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS: Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Eric Appel)
This reportedly wild and fictional biopic is quite popular with the media and this TIFF awards suggests it might be with audiences, too... if they see it. How many people have Roku? It starts streaming there on November 4th.
JURIED OR ORGANIZATIONAL PRIZES
PLATFORM PRIZE (Platform section): Riceboy Sleeps (Anthony Shim)
A drama about a single Korean mother raising her son in Canada in the 1990s.
NETPAC AWARD (For an Asian or Pacific Islander filmmaker): Sweet As (Jub Clerc)
An Australian drama about an indigenous teeanger discovering photography on a youth trip.
FIPRESCI PRIZE (voted on by critics): A Gaza Weekend (Basil Khalil)
A comedy (?) about a British journalists trying to leave Israel but stuck in the Gaza strip which becomes the safest place due to a spreading virus.
IMDB PRO SHORTCUT AWARD: Snow in September
Canadian Short: Simo (Aziz Zoromba)
Share Her Story: Nanitic (Carol Nguyen)
CANADA GOOSE Amplify Awards: To Kill a Tiger (Nisha Pahuja) Leonor Will Never Die (Martika Ramirez Escobar), and While We Watched (Vinay Shukla)
SHAWN MENDES CHANGE MAKER (Cash prize for a film promoting social change): Something You Said Last Night (Luis De Filippes)
A Canadian-Swiss drama about a 20something writer on vacation with her parents