<--- Discovery: Hunger (Steve McQueen)McQueen's debut film, a political bio, is about the last six weeks in the life of hunger striker Bobby Sands
FIPRESCI Prize (Discovery): Lymelife (Derick Martini) is a coming of age tale starring Rory Culkin. Alec Baldwin, Cynthia Nixon, Emma Frost and Kieran Culkin co-star.
FIPRESCI Prize (Special Presentation): Disgrace is an Australian feature set in South Africa in which John Malkovich has an affair with his student.
Canadian Film: Lost Song (Rodrigue Jean) is a marital drama about post-partum depression.
Canadian First Feature: Before Tomorrow (Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu) is being compared to Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner possibly because Inuit films are are.
Hopefully Lev and Brian will chime in with last minute film appraisals but the end of a film festival does have a way of knocking people out. They'll wake up sometime tomorrow I expect. Or Tuesday.
The big news everyone will be talking about is that the Audience Award went to Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan) about a Mumbai orphan (Jamal Malik played by Dev Patel from the British series Skins) who became a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. This prize tends to prompt Oscar Best Picture talk though the track record of that coming to pass indicates far from a 'sure thing'. It does, however, as Fataculture points out insure that it's on people's "must see" lists. That's all you can ask for in the long run: to be seen.
The past 20 years of TIFF Audience winners and how they fared with Oscar.
1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown -Pedro Almodovar's classic comedy, an international breakthrough for the world great, got a Foreign Film nod. It lost to the more serious Pelle the Conqueror because serious always beats funny with the gold man.
1989 Roger & Me -Michael Moore's debut film was a critical smash (NSFC, NBR, IDA, NYFF, LAFCA prizes) and a hit in theaters but Oscar's doc branch wasn't interested.
1990 Cyrano de Bergerac -A solid hit with AMPAS racking up 5 nominations including Foreign Film and Best Actor (Gerard Depardieu). It only won for its costuming.
1991 The Fisher King -Terry Gilliam's brilliant oddity won 5 Oscar nominations, and the supporting actress trophy (Mercedes Reuhl). Still, it was a bit too one-of-a-kind for the conservative Oscar voters to push it into the BP Shortlist.
1992 Strictly Ballroom -Baz Luhrmann's debut hit was a crowd pleaser but it didn't score with Oscar at all: too silly. That said, Cannes & BAFTA both gave it big love.
1993 The Snapper -Zero nominations for this Brit-com. It's consolation: a Globe nomination for Best Actor (Colm Meaney)1994 Priest -Oscar didn't respond (too gay?). But God I loved this when it came out.
1995 Antonia -won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. No other nominations.
1996 Shine -Yes, you can blame Toronto for starting this fire.
1997 The Hanging Garden -Another gay themed winner which means: zero Oscar attention.
1998-2000 Life is Beautiful + American Beauty + Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - A three year stretch of huge Oscar hits. This is arguably why TIFF became the place to announce yourself as Kodak Theater bound. Plus, September is good timing to start golden chatter.
2001 Amélie -This international hit had a surprisingly wild ride to Oscar. Those 5 nominations were nothing to sneeze at (though, despite much word of a mouth, a BP bid failed) but then on Oscar night Amélie won nada... rien... not even Foreign Film.
2002 Whale Rider -didn't use its Toronto win for an awards run. But unlike a lot of titles who wait till they've gone cold buzz wise before re-surfacing for audiences a year later, it managed to resuscitate to the tune of a history making Best Actress nomination. Nothing else though.
2003 Zatoichi -this blind swordsman Japanese film won 5 of Japan's Oscars. But the American Academy wasn't interested.2004 Hotel Rwanda -missed that Best Picture bid that it clumsily flailed towards with an indecisive and procrastinated release/campaign but all three of its Oscar nominations were big ones nonetheless.
2005 Tsotsi -won itself the Foreign Film Oscar but no other nominations.
2006 Bella -waited a full year for its release and by then the only TIFF winner people were talking about was...
2007's Eastern Promises - from Canada's own son David Cronenberg. Heavily buzzed in the fall, the Russian mafia drama won a well deserved Best Actor nomination for Viggo Mortenson come January. No other nominations.
Sooooo.... 2008 brings us Slumdog Millionaire from Danny Boyle. He's had an unruly, celebrated but decidedly non-Oscar baiting filmography (Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Millions). Will this festival hype translate?
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