Director David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises,” which opened Friday to strong reviews across North America, won the Toronto International Film Festival’s audience award, this year known as the Cadillac People’s Choice Award. The festival concluded Saturday with the awards presentation. A favorite Canadian son, Cronenberg is a regular at the festival.
“Juno,” the sophomore feature film effort from Jason “Thank You for Smoking” Reitman, won the runner-up audience award. Second runner-up was “Body of War” from Ellen Spiro and legendarily snowy-haired TV personality Phil Donahue.
Among the juried selections from this year’s festival, the best Canadian feature prize went to Guy Maddin’s droll autobiographical meditation “My Winnipeg.” Israel Cardenas and Laura Amelia Guzman received this year’s Discovery award, picked by 1,000 or so members of the international media, for “Cochochi.”
Anahi Berneri’s “Encarnacion” won the Artistic Innovation award, and the international critics’ prize was awarded to Rodrigo Pla’s “La Zona.”
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Personals was compiled by Alan Leo from Tribune news services and staff reports.
