Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical a black-and-white family drama about the Northern Ireland city during the tumult of the late 1960s, on Saturday won the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award, a telling indicator of Academy Awards chances.
The festival's top honor, voted on by festivalgoers at TIFF, is widely viewed as an Oscar harbinger. The previous nine winners have all gone on to secure a best-picture Oscar nomination, as have 13 of the last 14 People's Choice prizewinners. Those include best-picture winners 鈥�12 Years a Slave,鈥� 鈥淕reen Book" and
鈥淏别濒蹿补蝉迟,鈥� which first premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, draws from Branagh's own childhood in Belfast. The film, which stars Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds, will be released Nov. 12 by Focus Features
The awards wrapped up that has unspooled over the past 10 days. Usually one of the world's most massive movie showcases, this year's TIFF was a scaled-down pandemic hybrid, taking place in both socially distanced screenings and virtually online. The fall's other major festivals 鈥� in Venice; Telluride, Colorado; and New York 鈥� have opted for fully in-person editions.
But it was also a much more robust TIFF than last year's almost entirely virtual festival. The slate of about 100 feature films was down from Toronto's typical 250 movies but included many of the fall's most anticipated films 鈥� including Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi spectacle 鈥淒une,鈥� Jane Campion's Western melodrama 鈥淭he Power of the Dog" and Pablo Larra铆n鈥檚 Princess Diana biopic 鈥淪pencer.鈥� And as of Saturday, only one case of a positive COVID-19 from a festivalgoer was reported by TIFF.
Both 鈥淒une鈥� and 鈥淪pencer鈥� didn't make themselves eligible for the People's Choice Award, which required both an in-person screening and availability on the festival digital portal. Normally, festival volunteers dispense ballots to moviegoers on their way out of screenings. This year, because of the pandemic, all voting was done online.
In a presentation broadcast in Canada and streamed online globally, other awards included the platform prize 鈥� an award chosen by a jury headed by actor Riz Ahmed 鈥� going to Indonesian director a coming-of-age drama about a teenage girl approaching the prospect of an arranged marriage.
The festival said the closest competitors to 鈥淏elfast" in terms of votes were 鈥淭he Power of the Dog鈥� (second runner up) and Shasha Nakhai and Rich Williamson鈥檚 (first runner up), which follows three children over the course of one school year in the Toronto neighborhood.
The People's Choice award for documentary went to a non-fiction account of the 2018 mission to rescue the trapped youth soccer team from Thailand鈥檚 Tham Luang cave.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
