Women directors cleaned up at the 45th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, sweeping the audience awards. All films in TIFF’s Official Selection were eligible for the honors.
“Nomadland,” which recently won Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, snagged the fest’s top prize, the People’s Choice Award. Written and directed by Chloé Zhao, the drama tells the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), a woman from a Nevada mining town destroyed by the Great Recession. The 60-something begins living as a modern-day nomad, traveling across the U.S. in her camping van. Zhao also took home the TIFF Ebert Director Award.
Regina King’s feature directorial debut, “One Night in Miami,” was named as the first runner up for the People’s Choice Award. Set on the night of February 25, 1964, the pic sees a young Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, celebrating a match that made him the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion alongside three of his friends: activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke, and football star Jim Brown.
Tracey Deer’s “Beans,” a coming-of-age story set amidst the Oka Crisis, a three-month standoff between two Mohawk communities and government forces in 1990 Quebec, was the second runner up for the People’s Choice Award. Deer also received the TIFF Emerging Talent Award.
Michelle Latimer scored the People’s Choice Documentary Award for “Inconvenient Indian,” an adaptation of Thomas King’s book exploring the colonization of Indigenous peoples in North America, past and present.
“Inconvenient Indian” also won the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film. “All feature films in Official Selection by BIPOC and Canadian filmmakers were eligible for these awards,” TIFF details in a press release. Each winner receives a cash prize of $10,000.
Roseanne Liang’s “Shadow in the Cloud” was named as the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award winner. The genre pic sees Chloë Grace Moretz playing a WWII pilot assigned to protect a top-secret package aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress with an all-male crew.
The Changemaker Award, which TIFF explains “is awarded to a festival film that tackles issues of social change, and comes with a $10,000 cash prize,” went to “Black Bodies,” a short film by Kelly Fyffe-Marshall. The project was inspired by a personal experience Fyffe-Marshall had. While visiting California, she “and her friends were checking out of a rental property when someone called the police on them, accusing the group of breaking into the property,” CBC details.
Fyffe-Marshal emphasized that she wanted “to use this special moment to further push for change.” She explained, “This year the world seemed to have paused, and we finally heard the call for equality. What we are being called to do doesn’t take much. We just need each of us to do what we can, where we can, and make ripples where we are.”
Head over to BlogTO to check out the rest of TIFF 2020’s winners.
