La Bola Negra Wins TIFF's People's Choice Award: An Epic Film About Gay Lives

'La Bola Negra', a film about the interconnected lives of three gay men in Spain, has won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the film stars Penélope Cruz, Glenn Close, and Miguel Bernardeau.

The directors, known collectively as 'Los Javis', were not on hand to accept the prize on the final day of TIFF, but expressed their gratitude through a note. They said, 'Knowing that audiences have connected with it and made it their own is the greatest gift we could receive.'

The People's Choice Award, a bellwether for Oscars buzz, was one of a dozen prizes handed out at the 51st edition of TIFF, where 294 films screened. Festival CEO Cameron Bailey praised the audience's strength, noting they came out in great numbers.

Other notable winners included 'Angh', a film about the last surviving chief of a Nagaland village, which won the Platform Award. The film's director, Theja Rio, expressed his excitement about the Academy's expanded eligibility criteria, which now considers winners of qualifying awards at international film festivals.

The People's Choice Award winners also include 'Elsinore', 'Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney', and 'Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been'.

For the first time this year, the Platform Award offers a direct route to the Academy Awards, with 'Angh' being one of the first films to qualify under this new eligibility criteria.

Other notable winners include Cody Lightning's 'Smudge the Blades', which won Best Canadian Discovery for a first- or second-time director, and 'Sunburn', a coming-of-age film about a group of kids from Toronto's Bleecker Street neighbourhood, which won Best Canadian Feature.

The FIPRESCI Prize, awarded to a first-time international filmmaker, went to 'Ancestors' by Irish writer-director David Turpin, about an Irishman in London in the 1980s, when homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland.

The NETPAC Award, recognizing movies from Asia and the Pacific, went to 'Thirteen in Gaza' by Palestinian filmmaker Hosam Abu Dan, about a 13-year-old girl living in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.