Toronto International Film Festival Awards – 2006
The 2006 Toronto International Film Festival was held between Sept. 7-16, 2006.
The winners at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival were announced on Sept. 16, 2006.
"I really hope that this is not a dream and that I don't wake up at film school," declared 29-year-old, Mexican-born director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. "This festival is my first festival, it's my first film. it's my first everything." Monteverde's American-made movie romance, Bella, has won the People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, which came to a close this evening.
In Monteverde's feature-film début, Mexican pop idol Eduardo Verástegui and New Jersey-born Tammy Blanchard (best known for incarnating Judy Garland as a young woman in a 2001 TV film), play the couple whose lives are changed during the course of one day in New York City.
Gabriel Range's controversial Death of a President (read more here), a fictional account of the assassination of U.S. president George W. Bush, received the International Film Critics' prize.
The CityTV Award for Best Canadian feature film went to Noel Mitrani's Sur la Trace d'Igor Rizzi, about a former professional soccer player who, following the death of his Quebecois girlfriend, leaves his native France for Montreal.
Monteverde's quote is from Reuters / The Scotsman.
People's Choice Award: Bella (US) by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde
FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Prize: Death of a President (UK) by Gabriel Range
Diesel Discovery Award: Reprise (Norway) by Joachim Trier
Swarovski Cultural Innovation Award: Takva / Takva – A Man's Fear of God (Turkey / Germany) by Özer Kiziltan
CityTV Award for Best Canadian Feature Film: Sur la trace d'Igor Rizzi by Noel Mitrani
Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film: Manufactured Landscapes by Jennifer Baichwal
Short Cuts Canada Award: Les Jours by Maxime Giroux
FIPRESCI Jury: Klaus Eder (Germany) (head of jury); Géza Csákvári (Hungary); Esin Kücüktepepinar (Turkey); Oscar Peyrou (Spain); Norman Wilner (Canada)
Toronto International Film Festival Site