Fans at the Toronto International Film Festival have give the nod to director Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” in the annual People’s Choice Award.
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“‘La La Land’ was such an audience-friendly film”, said festival director Piers Handling.
Several people’s choice winners like “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008), “King’s Speech” (2010) and “12 Years a Slave” (2013) have gone on to win the Oscar award for Best Picture.
This is also the second festival honour bestowed upon La La Land in the past few weeks, after Stone scooped the award for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month (Sep16).
“La La Land” follows a romantic relationship between a dedicated jazz musician named Sebastian (Ryan) and an aspiring actress named Mia (Emma) who are struggling to make ends meet in Los Angeles. Since 2008, only one victor has not gone on to an Oscar nomination for best picture, and three – most recently, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave in 2013 – have won the best-picture prize. Runners-up for the top public prize were Garth Davis’s Lion and Mira Nair’s Queen Of Katwe. The award is given by a jury of three – this year, Brian De Palma, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Zhang Ziyi, who announced the prize.
Raoul Peck won the People’s Choice documentary award for “I Am Not Your Negro“, which tracks the lives and assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers.
The $30,000 Canada Goose Award for best Canadian feature film went to Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie for “Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves“.
Close to 400 films were screened at this this year’s festival, which wraps up Sunday.
Toronto jury prizes also went to Pablo Larrain for “Jackie“, Maysaloun Hamoud s “In Between”, Mbithi Masya for “Kati Kati“, and Feng Xiaogang for “I Am Not Madame Bovary”.
The Hollywood-set musical, about two aspiring artists who fall in love, was chosen by festival attendees as the People’s Choice Award recipient, and the victor is often considered a top contender when the Academy Awards roll around.
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Johnny Ma’s “Old Stone” won the $15,000 City of Toronto Award for best Canadian first feature film.
