The Toronto International Film Festival’s audience award, one of the most reliable early indicators of Oscar success, has gone to a Spanish-language film. La Bola Negra, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, won the People’s Choice Award, announced as the festival closed on Sunday, September 20.
About the film
La Bola Negra is a sweeping drama that spans decades of Spanish history and is inspired by an unfinished play by Federico García Lorca. It premiered at Cannes in May, where Calvo and Ambrossi won the best director prize, and Netflix has acquired it with plans for a significant theatrical release and awards campaign.
It is the first non-English-language film to win the award since Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now? in 2011.
The runners-up and other winners
- People’s Choice, first runner-up: I Play Rocky (Peter Farrelly).
- People’s Choice, second runner-up: Being Heumann (Sian Heder).
- International People’s Choice: Elsinore (Simon Stone), starring Andrew Scott.
- People’s Choice Documentary: Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been (Barry Avrich).
- People’s Choice Midnight Madness: Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (Matthew Rankin).
- Platform Prize: Angh (Theja Rio), the first Platform winner to qualify automatically for the Oscars’ international feature category.
Why the award matters
Because TIFF’s prize is voted for by ordinary festival-goers, it is seen as a test of how a film plays with a broad audience. Since 2008, 16 of the 18 winners have gone on to earn a best picture nomination at the Academy Awards, and five, including Slumdog Millionaire, 12 Years a Slave and Nomadland, won the top prize.
For La Bola Negra, the win strengthens its chances well beyond the international feature category. Together with Venice’s Golden Lion for Woman Unknown, it suggests this year’s awards race will be unusually international.