|
Bella wins audience choice award at Toronto film festival
2006-09-18
Mexican-born director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's romantic drama "Bella" has won the Toronto film festival's top prize awarded by audiences, but critics picked "Death of a President." The film about two individuals whose lives converge and turn upside down on a single day in New York City is Monteverde's first feature film. "I really hope that this is not a dream and that I don't wake up at film school," said Monteverde Saturday. "This festival is my first festival. It's my first film. It's my first everything." The film follows cook Jose, played by Eduardo Verastegui, on a tour of New York City with a striking, but distraught waitress (Tammy Blanchard) whom he barely knows, but tries to comfort and begs to know after she is fired from his brother's (Manny Perez) restaurant. It beat out Patrice Leconte's "Mon Meilleur Ami" (France), and Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck's documentary "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing" for the People's Choice Award, often a yardstick of Academy Award nominations. Previously, "American Beauty" and "Chariots of Fire" won Oscars for best picture after Toronto audiences gave them a nod. Last year's People's Choice Award winner "Tsotsi" went on to win an Oscar for best foreign-language film. "Death of a President" about a fictional assassination of US President George W. Bush, despite poor reviews, won the Prize of International Critics "for the audacity with which it distorts reality, to reveal a larger truth," the jury said in a statement. British director Gabriel Range's cautionary tale told in documentary style about an October 2007 assassination of Bush in Chicago amid Iraq war protests mixes archival footage with narrative elements to explore the loss of civil liberties, the ramifications of war and the manipulation of mass media. The film has already sparked controversy in the United States about the US president's world view, fed mostly by Bush's detractors, and others who deemed it inappropriate to bespeak the death of a living person, especially a US president. Other awards went to Ozer Kiziltan's "Takva -- A Man's Fear of God" for cultural innovation and artistry, Maxime Giroux's "Les Jours" for best short film, as well as Canadian films "Sur La Trace d'Igor Rizzi" by Noel Mitrani and Jennifer Baichwal's documentary "Manufactured Landscapes." More than 900 international journalists also tipped their hats to Norwegian Joachim Trier for "Reprise." But, Jennifer Lopez went home with the most cash after selling North American distribution rights for her biopic "El Cantante" late Friday to Picturehouse for about 5.9 million US dollars, tying last year's record. Bart Freundlich's "Trust the Man" starring David Duchovny and Julianne Moore sold for 5.9 million US dollars in 2005. The film festival this year screened more than 352 films or 27,747 minutes of reel in 10 days.
Annette Bening dedicates Hollywood star to husband Beatty (2006-11-10)While others eye Oscar, Bening looks for good roles (2006-10-23)Bella wins audience choice award at Toronto film festival (2006-09-18)"Bella" surprise winner of Toronto film prize (2006-09-16)Spacey opts for familiar to end Old Vic woes (2006-05-09)
| 
