TIFF 2012 award winners

The TIFF 2012 award winning films were announced earlier this afternoon at a brunch reception (see menu here) at the Intercontinental Toronto Centre. Leading up to the announcement there was some intrigue whether the much raved about Paul Thomas Anderson film The Master would win any hardware or whether TIFF would follow the lead of Venice and pull some surprises.

Last year, some might recall, most of the honored films didn't make much news post-festival. Few (if any) had any box office or critical success when it came to year-end award season. Anyone who's seen a single screening at TIFF this year will notice that TIFF now likes to trump how its award winners go on to have future critical and commercial success. The fact that American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech all previously won awards at TIFF was endlessly plugged in cinemas during the last 11 days.

Of course, it needs to be noted, that many of the award categories by definition honour films that won't get wide distribution or appeal to mass audiences. Here are this year's winners, broken down by category.

• People's Choice Award: Silver Linings Playbook
• People's Choice Award Documentary: Artifact
• People's Choice Award Midnight Madness: Seven Psychopaths
• Best Asian Feature First Film: The Land of Hope
• Best film in the Special Presentations programme: In the House
• Best film in the Discovery programme: Call Girl
• Best Canadian Feature Film: Laurence Anyways
• Best Canadian First Feature Film: Blackbird and Antiviral
• Best Short Film: Keep a Modest Head (Honorable mention: Crackin's Down Hard)

The Grolsch Film Works Discovery Award was announced earlier this week. As is annual TIFF tradition, The People's Choice winner will screen at 6pm today at the Ryerson Cinema. Tickets are free-of-charge and will be available on a first come basis.

Are you surprised by this year's crop of award winners? Which films would you like to have seen recognized? Add your two cents to the comment thread below.