By Steve Pond
TheWrap
Steve McQueen‘s harrowing “12 Years a Slave” has been named winner of the BlackBerry Peoples Choice Award at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF announced at an awards lunch on Sunday.
The film, which is considered a leader in the Oscar race for Best Picture after triumphant screenings in Toronto and Telluride, won the strongest reaction from TIFF-goers who deposited their ticket stubs while leaving the theater or cast ballots online.
“The Square” won the award as the festival’s favorite documentary, while “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” was named favorite film from the Midnight Madness section.
The last six Oscar Best Picture winners have all screened at TIFF. In that time, the Oscar winner has captured the TIFF audience award twice: “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2008 and “The King’s Speech” in 2010.
Last year, David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook” won the award, while the eventual Oscar winner, Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” was one of two runners up.
One of Cory Monteith’s last two films, “All the Wrong Reasons,” won the Grolsch Film Works Discovery Award.
“Ida” and “The Amazing Catfish” won awards from the international critics’ association, FIPRESCI.
In the awards for Canadian films, Seth Scriver’s and Shayne Ehman’s “Asphalt Watches” was named best first feature, while Alan Zweig’s “When Jews Were Funny” took the prize for best Canadian feature and Walter Woodman’s and Patrick Cederberg’s “Noah” was named best Canadian short.
In previous years, winners of the audience award included Oscar winners “American Beauty” and “Chariots of Fire,” as well as “Where Do We Go Now,” “Tsotsi,” “Hotel Rwanda,” “Whale Rider,” “Shine,” “Strictly Ballroom,” “The Fisher King,” “Roger Me,” “The Princess Bride” and “The Big Chill.”
The award is open to any film that screened at the festival, apart from shorts and entries in the TIFF Cinematheque section. Contenders included Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity,” Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Dallas Buyers Club,” John Wells “August: Osage County” and John Carney’s “Can a Song Save Your Life?”
The winners:
BlackBerry Peoples Choice Award: “12 Years a Slave”
BlackBerry Peoples Choice Documentary Award: “The Square”
Runners-up: “Beyond the Edge,” “Hi-Ho Mistahey!”
BlackBerry People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award: “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?”
Best Canadian First Feature Film: “Asphalt Watches”
City of Toronto and Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film: “When Jews Were Funny”
Best Canadian Short Film: “Noah”
International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize for Discovery Program: “The Amazing Catfish”
International Critcs (FIPRESCI) Prize for Special Presentations: “Ida”
NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere: “QISSA”
Grolsch Film Works Discovery Award: “All the Wrong Reasons”
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