UK filmmakerGabriel Range's Death Of A President won the FIPRESCI prize while Joachim Trier's Reprise(Norway) won the Diesel Discovery Award as the 31st TorontoInternational Film Festival wrapped here on Saturday. The prizes went to arange of films, many of them debut features.
The audienceprize, the People's Choice Award, was asurprise: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's Bella(US), which tells the story of twoindividuals whose lives converge and turn upside down on a single day in NewYork City, took the prize while Patrice Leconte's MonMeilleur Ami (France) and Barbara Koppleand Cecilia Peck's Dixie Chicks: Shut Up And Sing (US) were first and second runner-up respectively.
Ozer Kiziltan's Takva - A Man's Fear Of God (Turkey/Germany) won the inaugural Swarovski CulturalInnovation Award while Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth's Khadak (Belgium/Germany/Netherlands) earned an honurable mention.
The Toronto-CityAward for Best Canadian Feature Film went to Jennifer Baichwal's documentaryManufactured Landscapes,a portrait of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. The jury, composed offilmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee, Sight & Sound editor Nick James, screenwriterKaren Walton and actress Anna Paquin, said of the film, "From itsastonishing first shot to its overwhelming conclusion, this film is aprofoundly evocative dialogue between artists of the highest calibre; findingexceptional beauty in the peril of our planet." Honourable mention went toReg Harkema's Monkey Warfare.
The Citytv Awardfor Best Canadian First Feature Film went to Noel Mitrani for Sur La Trace D'Igor Rizzi. The same jury commented: "It is a raretreat when a new director's debut embraces the medium with such originality; atruly cinematic meeting of style and substance [in which] dubious characters[are] in an unforgiving landscape consumed by a perversely romantic pursuit,wrapped in unique wit and a compassionate eye."
No comments yet