The Toronto International Film Festival handed its People’s Choice Award to La Bola Negra, the Spanish feature directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, as the event closed its 51st edition on September 20. Unlike the juried prizes, the award is decided by festival audiences, and over the years it has often flagged titles that go on to feature in the awards season conversation. The film stars Penelope Cruz and moves a queer story across different periods of time. Toronto is one of the year’s major festival stops, and its slate mixes gala premieres with discoveries that arrive without a distributor attached.
Calvo and Ambrossi, the Spanish duo known for their films and television at home, came out ahead of a competitive field. I Play Rocky, directed by Peter Farrelly, finished as first runner-up, while Being Heumann, from Sian Heder, landed in second. The outcome capped eleven days that drew filmmakers, actors and buyers from around the world to screenings across the city.
The festival spread its audience prizes across several categories. Elsinore, Simon Stone’s film set against the Danish backdrop of Hamlet’s castle, took the International People’s Choice Award, a result that gave the Nordic setting a moment in the Toronto spotlight. In the documentary field, Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, directed by Barry Avrich, drew the top audience vote for its portrait of the singer’s long career.
The Midnight Madness section, devoted to genre and late night programming, gave its audience award to Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, directed by Matthew Rankin. The Platform Prize, one of the juried honours, went to Angh, an Indian feature from director Theja Rio. That award carries 20,000 Canadian dollars and makes the film eligible for submission in the Best International Feature category at the Academy Awards.
Toronto has long served as an early stop on the route to the Oscars, and its audience award in particular has preceded a string of best picture nominees and winners. With this edition closed, attention turns to how La Bola Negra and the other honoured titles fare as the wider awards calendar takes shape. Distribution plans for several of the films are expected to follow in the coming weeks.
