"American Fiction" is the People's Choice Winner at TIFF. That's usually an Oscar omen.

by Nathaniel R

American Fiction (coming from MGM)

Oscar-campaigning will probably look a lot different this season as Ben recently noted. With the strike ongoing and no resolution in sight there will be a glamour vacuum. Nature abhors a vaccuum so maybe the prestige of prizes from the Big Five festivals will gain yet more importance? Chronologically that's Sundance (A Thousand and One), Berlinale (On the Adamant -- a French documentary), Cannes (Anatomy of a Fall - France's Oscar submission finalist), and Venice (Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things), with Toronto as the capper.  TIFF '23 ends today (though if we know ever-prolific Cláudio, there's a few more posts coming). Toronto is not juried in the traditional way that it's predecessors on the calendar are so the People's Choice Winner is the big prize.

American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright, took that coveted honor for 2023. It will be released by MGM on November 3rd. The satire is about an author who writes an awful book in protest of the industries treatment of black authors that becomes a best-seller (to his horror). The majority of winners of this prize go on to Best Picture nominations. The full list of prizes is after the jump...

PEOPLE'S CHOICE: American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
1st Runner Up: The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
2nd Runner Up: The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki).

American Fiction is a feature directorial debut for Cord Jefferson who has previously been on the writing team of multiple acclaimed television shows like Station Eleven, Watchmen, and The Good Place. Almost every winner of this prize goes on to a Best Picture nomination. The last time a film missed was the popular Lebanese musical Where Do We Go Now? (2011) which weirdly didn't even score a nomination in Best International Feature Film.  

But first and second runner up position is also a big deal at TIFF in terms of Oscar power (if the film is in English at least). The runner ups are often nominated for Best Picture (think Power of the Dog or Call Me By Your Name) or they become almost-theres that nevertheless snag a few nominations  (think One Night in Miami or I Tonya). So all three of these films are likely to be Oscar players in at least one category (and probably more).

PEOPLE'S CHOICE, DOCUMENTARY: Mr Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe (Robert McCallum)
This one is a tribute to a Canadian children's show.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS: Dicks: The Musical (Larry Charles)
The musical comedy (formerly known as Fucking Identical Twins) hits US theaters September 29th courtesy of A24.

PLATFORM AWARD: Dear Jassi (Tarsem Singh Dhandwar)
Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall, Mirror Mirror) returns with a romantic drama in Punjabi and English about a couple who wants to be togther but society keeps them apart.

BEST CANADIAN FEATURE: Solo (Sophie Dupuis)
A drag scene drama starring Théodore Pellerin (Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Beau is Afraid) and Félix Maritaud (Sauvage/Wild, BPM, Knife + Heart). From writer/director Sophie Dupuis who made her debut in 2018 with the Canadian Oscar submission Family First which also starred Pellerin.

BEST SHORT FILM: Electra (Daria Kascheeva)

BEST CANADIAN SHORT: Motherland (Jasmin Mozaffari)
A 24 minute short bout a young man on a trip to meet his fiancé's parents during the height of the Iran Hostage crisis. In Persian and English. 

#SHAREHERJOURNEY AWARD: "She" (Renee Zhan)

NETPAC AWARD: A Match (Jayant Digambar Somalkar)
An Indian film in the Marathi language about a young woman struggling with patriarchal traditions. 

FIPRESCI JURY AWARD: Seagrass (Meredith Hama-Brown)
A drama detailing time at a couples retreat for a Japanese-Canadian woman and her husband. [REVIEWED]

AMPLIFY VOICES AWARD FOR BEST BIPOC CANADIAN FEATURE: Kanaval (Henri Pardo)
A drama with fantasy elements following a mother and son from Haiti living in a rural village in Quebec

AMPLIFY VOICES AWARD FOR BEST BIOPIC CANADIAN FIRST-FEATURE: Tautuktavuk (Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk)
An Inuit drama about separated sisters -- played by the directors. The English title is What We See. 

CHANGEMAKER AWARD: We Grown Now (Minhal Baig)
A drama centered on two young boys in a public housing complex in Chicago in the early nineties. 

Comments

[Edwin]

I’m kind of flirting with the idea of Miyazaki getting a Best Director nomination. It’s never happened before for an animated movie, but if there’s anyone who could overcome that barrier it’s him, and with this being his swan song, there may be some support within the directors branch. And of course it helps that the film lives up to the hype according to most.

[McGill]

I saw American Fiction last night. It was so popular they added another showing. Every seat was filled, so I can see it winning the People’s Choice Award.

And it’s a deserving winner, both very funny and serious. The funny parts are him dealing with the book he wrote under a pseudonym, and the serious parts are his relationships with his family and other people.

It’s lovely to see Jeffrey Wright have the lead in an excellent movie, with so many variations, tones, and moods to play, and he is just great in all of them.

A very strong supporting cast makes me think a SAG ensemble nomination is likely.

[cal roth]

Last time a major tv writer penned the screenplay for the Toronto winner was American Beauty and it won the Oscar!

[jules]

I'm happy to see Jeffrey Wright in a starring role in an acclaimed awards movie. He deserves more mainstream acclaim. It would be awesome if he won Best Actor, and maybe he actually can.

[Joe G.]

This is pretty great news for Jeffery Wright's campaign, and will ensure voters take note of his film.