Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award
Today, Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award is a topic that generates great interest and debate in society. From its origins to its current impact, Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award has been the object of study and reflection by experts and professionals in different fields. Throughout history, Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award has played a fundamental role in the evolution of humanity, influencing the way we live, work and relate. In this article, we will explore the different aspects of Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award and its importance in today's world, analyzing its effects and possible implications for the future.
Canadian annual film award
The Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to the film rated as the year's most popular film with festival audiences. Past sponsors of the award have included Cadillac and Grolsch.
The winners of this award have often later earned Academy Award nominations, to the point that the award is now considered to be effectively the "starting gun" of the Academy Award nominations race.
In 2009, the festival introduced separate People's Choice Awards for Documentaries and Midnight Madness. In 2015, it also introduced a People's Choice Award for its satellite Canada's Top Ten festival, which was discontinued after 2018 due to TIFF's decision to switch the Canada's Top Ten program from a dedicated festival to a series of week-long theatrical screenings.
Process
At each film screening, attendees are invited to "vote" for the film by rating the film on their ticket stub and depositing it in a box outside the theatre after the show. However, to ensure that the voting process does not bias the award toward films that screened in larger theatres and that a film's own cast and crew cannot stuff the ballot box, the overall number of votes received is also weighted against the size of the screening audience. For example, a film which screened in a smaller theatre, but had a highly passionate fan base, can have an advantage over a film that had a larger number of raw votes but a more mixed or uneven reception. Because each film is screened multiple times over the course of the entire festival, the process also enables the organizers to evaluate which films are generating more audience buzz, by virtue of a significant increase in attendance and/or People's Choice votes at the follow-up screenings.
For the 2020 festival, which was conducted primarily on an online streaming platform due to the COVID-19 pandemic, People's Choice voting was also conducted online; voters' e-mail addresses were cross-referenced against online ticket registrations to ensure that the vote could not be manipulated by people who had not actually seen the films.
After the award is announced, the festival offers several repeat screenings of the winner at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on the final day of the festival.
Winners
The table below shows the People's Choice winners of past years. Prior to 2000, only the overall winner was named each year; in that year, the festival began announcing the first and second runners-up for the award as well.
Prior to the creation of the separate People's Choice Award for Documentaries, the main award was won by two documentary films, Best Boy in 1979 and Roger & Me in 1989.
^Peter Howell, "Life's beautiful for Benigni". Toronto Star, September 21, 1998.
^Liam Lacey, "Five Senses tops jury list at Toronto Film Festival: Canadian audience gazes favourably on American Beauty at award brunch capping off star-studded year". The Globe and Mail, September 20, 1999.
^"People prize Chinese action ; Best Canadian feature award goes to Calgary director Gary Burns". Toronto Star, September 18, 2000.
^"Movies win role in a traumatized world ; Toronto film festival ended with hope for better future". Toronto Star, September 17, 2001.
^"Spider, Whale Rider win big in Toronto". Timmins Daily Press, September 17, 2002.
^"Barbarian Invasions wins best Canadian feature: Toronto International Film Festival wraps up". Orillia Packet and Times, September 15, 2003.
^"Hotel Rwanda tops at T.O. film fest". The Province, September 20, 2004.
^"South African drama is people's choice at TIFF". The Globe and Mail, September 19, 2005.
^Chris Knight, "And the winner is ...; La La Land takes bellwether award". National Post, September 19, 2016.
^Jeremy Kay (September 17, 2017). "'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' wins Toronto audience award". Screen Daily. In other key awards handed out on Sunday afternoon (17), Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country claimed the Toronto Platform Prize, while Joseph Kahn's Bodied won the Grolsch People's Choice Midnight Madness Award. Agnès Varda and JR's Faces Places took the Grolsch People's Choice Documentary Award.