TIFF Audiences Make a "Precious" Choice
Earlier today, I kicked off the last of my TIFFing at a reception announcing this year's jury and people's choice picks. While my festival favourites (Fish Tank, The Time That Remains, Life During Wartime) were overlooked at the Awards, a surprising new list of must-see titles emerged.
The roundup of TIFF 2009 winners looks like this:
Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI) for Special Presentations:
Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch (France)
Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI) for Discovery:
Laxmikant Shetgaonkar's The Man Beyond the Bridge (India)
SKYY Vodka Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film:
Alexandre Franchi's The Wild Hunt
City of Toronto and Astral Media's The Movie Network Award for the Best Canadian feature Film:
Ruba Nadda's Cairo Time
Award for Best Canadian Short:
Pedro Pires' Danse Macabre
(With and "honourable mention" to Jamie Travis for The Armoire)
Cadillac People's Choice Award:
Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
(Bruce Beresford`s Mao`s Last Dancer and Jean-Pierre Jeunet`s Micmacs were first and second runners-up)
Cadillac People's Choice Award - Documentary:
Leanne Pooley 's The Topp Twins
Cadillac People's Choice Award - Midnight Madness:
Sean Byrne's The Loved Ones
A first-come, first-served race is on for free tickets to see the top People's Choice pick Precious, available at 7pm today at the Elgin Theatre box office, for a 9pm screening of the film.
Failing that, a festival wrap party is in the works at Yonge-Dundas Square. Eclectic Method from London are on the bill, set to remix clips from television, film, music and video game footage. Clyde Stubblefield, Chuck D and "other special guests" are expected in the Square from 9 to 11 pm (on September 19th).
Comments (8)
I'm not all that surprised that Precious took home the honour. I saw the film at its gala screening and really enjoyed it. It kind of had the same sort of inspiring, though not a happy ending type, feel to it like last year's People's Choice, Slumdog Millionaire. Anyway if you get a chance to go watch it tonight for the free screening, I definitely recommend going.
I also have a short review and some videos of the intros (which included THE OPRAH!) and photos from the event in my blog if anyone is interested -> http://awesomeness.net/blog/
"with all votes counted"
I don't understand how that's possible. I saw Hadewijch at 4 p.m. today at the Winter Garden and it was announced beforehand that Precious won the People's Choice. So our votes for today's 4 p.m. screening of Hadewijch, or votes for any films anywhere by that time, must not have been included.
Man, I knew the counsellor looked reeeaal familiar but it took looking at the imdb page to realize it was Mariah hot-damn Carey.
This seems like your typical feel-good story and, seeing the trailer, it's easy to see why it won audiences over.
I hope there's more to it than what's shown, though. Merely replacing the 'white woman saves minority/ies schtick (see Freedom Writers, Dangerous Minds etc) with 'Caramel women save minority' would be disappointing and tiresome. I'm not optimistic, however. This looks like it's aiming to make everyone feel good, not bothering with that complex shit.
I wouldn't say it is aiming to make people "feel good". I didn't leave the movie feeling "good" at all. It isn't one of those movies you really say you enjoyed watching. It was hard to watch at times. I wouldn't say it was my favourite of all of the movies I saw at TIFF (16), that one would be "The Wind Journeys" but I can see the appeal for Precious and definitely think it will get an Oscar nod. Still to see what kind of competition is to come for the rest of the year.
Answering the above about balloting, known of the shows today were balloted from the people's choice from what I udnerstand. I am pretty sure the ballots they were handing out were jsut to win the car. Having said that, I am not sure how that effects voting results. I found that this eyar programmers didn't mention anything about voting for the people's choice award (only heard it mentioned once out of those 16 times).
[....]With this in mind, TIFF volunteer collect ballots after every screening and with all votes counted, this year's Cadillac People's Choice Award went to Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (with Oprah on the ticket as exec producer).[....]
[....]While my festival favourites (Fish Tank, The Time That Remains, Life During Wartime) were overlooked at the Awards, a surprising new list of must-see titles emerged.[....]
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