TIFF 2015: Room wins People's Choice Award as festival wraps

A seemingly cloudy Oscar race became a little clearer on Sunday as the Toronto International Film Festival awarded the harrowing drama Roomthe People's Choice prize, an honour that is often a predictor of Academy Award success.

The Canadian-Irish film stars Brie Larson and eight-year-old Jacob Tremblay of Vancouver as a mother and son who live in a shed that he thinks is the entire world.

Ireland's Lenny Abrahamson directed the suspenseful yet touching tale that's based on Canadian author Emma Donoghue's celebrated novel.

• TIFF 2015 Capsule movie reviews: Beasts of No Nation, Legend, The Danish Girl

It won the $15,000 Grolsch People's Choice Award at the end of an 11-day festival in which there appeared to be no clear front-runner.

"We shot this film in Toronto and it's incredible that this happened," said Roomproducer David Gross.

"I know it's rare ... that a Canadian film actually wins this award."

Festival director Piers Handling said the balloting on the prize was "very, very close."

When you get the toughest guy in Hollywood bawling in one of the screenings, you think you've got something special.- Noah Segal, Elevation Pictures

"Roomkind of ignited audiences," he said. "I think it's a very serious film but it's a very emotional film."

The film even had Scottish star Gerard Butler "bawling" when he saw it at the fest, said the distributor, noting they urged the actor-producer to view it after hearing he was looking to cast a 10-year-old boy in his next film.

"When you get the toughest guy in Hollywood bawling in one of the screenings, you think you've got something special," said Noah Segal, co-president of Toronto-based Elevation Pictures.

TIFF win a precursor to further success

Last year's People's Choice winner was The Imitation Game,which went on to get eight Oscar nominations, nabbing one golden statuette for best adapted screenplay.

• TIFF 2015: Fans rub shoulders with stars, and snap selfies

Several previous People's Choice winners have also gone one to nab best picture at the Oscars, including 12 Years a Slave,The King's Speechand Slumdog Millionaire.

Another Canadian film won a major prize at Sunday's event the inaugural Platform award.

Veteran Canadian documentary maker Alan Zweig's Hurt,a portrait of disgraced runner Steve Fonyo, beat out 11 other titles to win the $25,000 award that was chosen by an international jury.

Roombeat out first runner-up Angry Indian Goddessesand second runner-up Spotlight,Tom McCarthy's star-studded journalism thriller that was one of several festival films that received strong reviews.

TIFF 2015 wraps up

9 years ago

Duration 2:51

Stars turn out Saturday night for closing gala of 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival

Other top titles with critics at the fest included Ridley Scott's outerspace tale The Martianstarring Matt Damon, Jean-Marc Vallee's Demolitionstarring Jake Gyllenhaal, and Scott Cooper's gangster thriller Black Massstarring Johnny Depp.

"Overall I would say it wasn't necessarily the best TIFF as in recent years," said Jake Coyle, film writer for the Associated Press.

"A number of the stronger films at the festival had played at other festivals, like Venice or Telluride or Cannes."

Handling conceded there wasn't "one breakout film" at the fest this year, but he still felt it "was a really, really strong year."

• TIFF 2015 style: Keith Richards, Salma Hayek, Kiefer Sutherland

"Sometimes when you have a breakout film, it's nice, you know, a buzz film like 12 Years a Slaveor The King's Speechor Slumdog Millionaire,and everyone coalesces around that," he said.

"But I think that puts some of the other really good films into the shadows. This year I think it was just a strong year for that type of ... artistically driven commercial cinema."

MoreCanadian winners

Other award winners on Sunday included Andrew Cividino's Sleeping Giant,which took the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film.

Stephen Dunn's Closet Monsterwon the Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film.

• TIFF 2015: Canadian films highlight festival, but will they make money?

• How much does TIFF really cost moviegoers?

Film critic Anne Thompson praised this year's fest for the amount of awards contenders it had, noting it's also a "buyers' festival" where many films get the most amount of notice.

Room,for instance, premiered at the Tellurude Film Festival before going to Toronto but TIFF is where it really took off.

"It needed to do this, it needed to go to Toronto and really hit with everyone there and it did," said Thompson, founder and editor-in-chief of daily entertainment industry blog Thompson on Hollywood at Indiewire.

"And now Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are very strong actor contenders in the Oscar derby."