September 16, 2018
The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival took place from September 6 to September 16 in Toronto. Here are the 2018 winners of the festival’s awards, which were announced on September 16 at an awards-ceremony brunch:
THE GROLSCH PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
Winner: Peter Farrelly’s Green Book
First runner-up: Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk
Second runner-up: Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA
The award offers a $15,000 cash prize and custom award, sponsored by Grolsch.
THE GROLSCH PEOPLE’S CHOICE MIDNIGHT MADNESS AWARD
Winner: Vasan Bala’s The Man Who Feels No Pain (Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota)
First runner-up: David Gordon Green’s Halloween
Second runner-up: Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation
THE GROLSCH PEOPLE’S CHOICE DOCUMENTARY AWARD
Winner: E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s Free Solo
First runner-up: Tom Donahue’s This Changes Everything
Second runner-up: John Chester’s The Biggest Little Farm
INTERNATIONAL JURY AWARDS
TORONTO PLATFORM PRIZE PRESENTED BY AIR FRANCE
Winner: Wi Ding Ho’s Cities of Last Things
Honourable Mention: Emir Baigazin’s The River
The Toronto Platform Prize offers a custom award and a $25,000 cash prize, made possible by Air France.
The Festival welcomed an international jury comprised of award-winning filmmakers Mira Nair, Béla Tarr, and Lee Chang-dong.
THE PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM CRITICS (FIPRESCI PRIZE)
Winner – Discovery Programme: Carmel Winters’ Float Like a Butterfly
Honourable Mention: Laura Luchetti’s Twin Flower
THE PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM CRITICS (FIPRESCI PRIZE)
Winner – Special Presentations: Guy Nattiv’s Skin
Honourable Mention: Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man
The jury was comprised of Jury President Lesley Chow (Australia), Andrés Nazarala (Chile), Astrid Jansen (Belgium), Pierre Pageau (Canada), James Slotek (Canada), and Viswanath Subrahmanyan (India).
NETPAC AWARD
Winner: Ash Mayfair’s The Third Wife
- Jury remarks: “Ash Mayfair’s debut feature The Third Wife signalled the emergence of a young female director-writer whose aesthetic sensibilities, cinematic language, and extraordinary ability to illuminate the past for contemporary audiences augur well for the future of Vietnamese and world cinema.”
Honourable Mention: Bai Xue’s The Crossing
- Jury remarks: “Bai Xue’s storytelling in her debut film The Crossing shattered cinematic boundaries to create an original visual language that propelled her protagonist’s emotional crossing into adulthood as she crossed the physical boundaries of Hong Kong into mainland China.”
The jury, selected from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Pacific Cinema, comprised of Vilsoni Hereniko (Fiji), Meng Xie (China), and Gülin Üstün (Turkey).
EURIMAGES’ AUDENTIA AWARD
Winner: Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian’s Fig Tree
Honourable Mention: Camilla Strøm Henriksen’s Phoenix
The Audentia Award for Best Female Director, presented by The Festival and the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund, carries a €30,000 cash prize.
The jury was comprised of Anne Frank, Reinaldo Marcus Green, and Kerri Craddock.
SHORT FORM JURY AWARDS
IWC SHORT CUTS AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN SHORT FILM
Winner: Meryam Joobeur’s Brotherhood
Honourable Mention: The jury awarded a special mention to Jérémy Comte’s Fauve for its confident visual storytelling and moving performances from the child actors.
The award offers a $10,000 cash prize, made possible by IWC Schaffhausen.
IWC SHORT CUTS AWARD FOR BEST SHORT FILM
Winner: Sandhya Suri’s The Field
Honourable Mentions: Anette Sidor’s Fuck You, for its acutely observed study of teenage sexuality, and to Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels’s This Magnificent Cake!, for the spectacular level of animation and the surreal humour it uses to explore its complex colonial subject matter.
The award offers a $10,000 cash prize, made possible by IWC Schaffhausen.
The jury was comprised of Claire Diao, Molly McGlynn, and Michael Pearce.
CANADIAN FILM JURY AWARDS
CITY OF TORONTO AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE FILM
Winner: Katherine Jerkovic’s Roads in February (Les routes en février)
This award carries a cash prize of $15,000, made possible by the City of Toronto.
CANADA GOOSE® AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM
Winner: Sébastien Pilote’s The Fireflies Are Gone (La disparition des lucioles)
This award carries a cash prize of $30,000 and a custom award, sponsored by Canada Goose®.
The jury was comprised of Mathieu Denis, Ali Özgentürk, and Michelle Shephard.