Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (top photo); Lee Daniels
The bizarrely titled Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, formerly known as Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire, was the Audience Award winner at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival. The Toronto win, which follows widespread critical acclaim and a couple of Sundance awards earlier in the year, has pushed Precious to the forefront of likely Oscar contenders come February 2010. (Last year's Toronto winner and critics' favorite, Slumdog Millionaire, eventually turned out to be the best picture Oscar winner.)
Directed by Lee Daniels, Precious tells the story of an overweight, illiterate, pregnant teenager (Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe) who is abused by her mother (Mo'Nique), but finds emotional support from her teacher (Paula Patton), who happens to be a lesbian.
There were two runners-up in the best narrative film category: Bruce Beresford's Mao's Last Dancer (above), based on the real-life story of China's ballet dancer Li Cunxin (Chi Cao), who refused to return to China after getting a taste of real freedom in — you guessed it — Texas; and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs, a fantasy tale featuring Dany Boon as a man bent on avenging his father's death at the hands of evil arms manufacturers.
Toronto fest filmgoers also picked Leanne Pooley's The Topp Twins (above, top photo), about two lesbian country-singing sisters from New Zealand, as best documentary, and Sean Byrne's Australian-made The Loved Ones (above, lower photo), in which a young man (Xavier Samuel) becomes the "prom king at a macabre, sadistic event where he is the entertainment," as best film in the Midnight Madness sidebar.
Daybreakers (top photo); Michael and Peter Spierig (lower photo)
Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, an attack on Wall Street greed, was the runner-up in the documentary category, while the runner-up among the Midnight Madness films was Michael and Peter Spierig's Daybreakers, about human beings trying to recover their former dominant position on a planet now (2019) dominated by mutant vampires (who, minus the blood diet, sound quite a bit like 2009 human beings).
Patricia Clarkson, Alexander Siddig in Cairo Time (top); Julie Sokolowski in Hadewijch (middle); The Man Beyond the Bridge by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar (bottom)
Other winners were Ruba Nadda's Cairo Time, voted the best Canadian film, in which Patricia Clarkson plays a married woman who develops an intimate relationship with an Egyptian man (Alexander Siddig) while waiting for her husband to arrive in Cairo; Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch, the International Film Critics' choice, which revolves around a devout Catholic and former theology student (Julie Sokolowski) and an equally devout Muslim fundamentalist (Karl Sarafidis) who discover that despite their different holy books they share a strong bond in their mad religious fervor; and International Film Critics' Discovery award winner The Man Beyond the Bridge, Laxmikant Shetgaonkar's romantic drama about the budding relationship between an Indian forest ranger and a "madwoman" he finds hiding near his house.
Alexandre Franchi's The Wild Hunt (above), about a reenacted Medieval "fantasy" battle run amok, was chosen the best Canadian first feature, while Pedro Pires' Danse Macabre, featuring the motions of a corpse, won top honors among the festival's short films. The runner-up in that category was Jamie Travis' The Armoire, the chronicle of a boy who starts living inside his armoire after his best friend goes missing in their idyllic suburban neighborhood.
Photos: Toronto Film Festival