Bella wins audience choice award... a bit early

20060916_bella.jpg

Strongly suggesting that the "audience choice award" at the Toronto International Film Festival is not based on the actual ballots filled out by audience members, news of this year's winner, Bella, leaked almost an hour before the final screening of the film had even begun this afternoon.

Festivalgoers have long suspected that the ballots handed out at every screening at the festival were being shovelled into the nearest convenient furnace as soon as they are turned in, and TIFF's awkward timing with the Bella news may have inadvertently conceded the point. I was literally in the rush line at the Varsity with audience members hoping to get in to see the film when a Bella booster came around to announce the film's win and hand out celebratory postcards.

Now, the announcement has not yet reached the TIFF web site so this news must still be taken with a grain of salt. But the TIFF staff at the Varsity have confirmed that Bella is indeed the winner, and that the official announcement will be made prior to the film's final screening at 2:45 p.m.

I wonder if that final audience will be encouraged to vote or not.

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It might not have been on the website, but I got an email from the press office about the win for Bella almost two hours ago.

Posted by: Sameer Vasta [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 16, 2006 3:35 PM

Frater, muchas felicidades. Que Dios te bendiga y que continuen los exitos!

Pax Domini

Posted by: Rafa at September 16, 2006 4:53 PM

Maybe it's just me Matt, but I thought the voting system for the people's choice award this year was a complete disaster. They made it SO hard to vote: many screenings I never got a voting slip going in or out, they changed it so you needed a pencil and had to write the film title each time, AND it was hard to find a kiosk to put your vote in - at least last year it was just a simple tear on a colour-coded slip and given to a waiting volunteer, many of whom had plastic baggies to collect votes. Now the final insult that they announce the winner before all the films have been seen?! Is TIFF trying to discredit and devalue its own people choice award? They're doing a great job of it.

We are going to try and make the voting at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival next month as simple and easy as possible for the audience. And COUNT every one of them too. It might be a lot of work, but at least then it truly is the AUDIENCE CHOICE and not this almost pointless system in place at TIFF.

Posted by: Adam Lopez at September 17, 2006 1:44 AM

What a fantastic piece of filmmaking. One of my absolute favorites. The character interactions and development is just so authentic.

Posted by: rs at September 17, 2006 1:56 AM

I checked into this. According to TIFF and their 3rd party accounting firm who administers the vote, the official cut off for voting is Saturday morning and they made the official announcement at their Awards reception at around 12pm, which was before the final screenings, including the final screening of Bella.

Posted by: Tony Hayden at September 17, 2006 11:39 AM

Very strange. Why can't they delay announcing the people's choice award until all the people have seen all the films? I have the same beef about the Short Film Fest. They leave us geeks in the cold by playing the sci-fi collection of shorts AFTER the award ceremony. YUP a sci-fi short can therefore NEVER win the audience choice award at the Short Film Fest!

Posted by: Adam Lopez at September 18, 2006 2:19 AM

Adam: that's how I feel about Midnight Madness at TIFF! The closing film never has a chance!

Tony: thanks for the info. I think TIFF needs to be a lot more up front about this sort of thing. If it looks bad, it's bad for the festival, and this looked freakin' terrible.

Posted by: Matt at September 20, 2006 7:52 PM

bella is a definitely oscar worthy the people choice award was very deserving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: merly freixenet at September 26, 2006 9:44 PM

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