Film Fest wraps up with awards

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) wrapped up with a couple of Chinese movies getting awards at a ceremony on Sunday in Toronto.

Feng Xiaogang’s I Am Not Madame Bovary won the International Federation of Film Critics prize for special presentations. Johnny Ma’s Old Stone (Lao Shi) got the City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film.

Chinese actor Zhang Ziyi presented the Toronto Platform Prize to Pablo Larraín for Jackie. This was the sophomore year for the Platform Prize, the festival’s juried programme that champions director’s cinema from around the world.

"A huge amount of Chinese films, talent and audience showed up at this festival,” Piers Handling, CEO and director of TIFF told China Daily. "I think Chinese films are moving away from a domestic market to an international one.”

Chinese film companies and investors have been actively pursuing opportunities to co-produce and finance North American films, with a vested interest in films with crossover appeal. The trend could be seen in such selections as Birth of the Dragon, Mad World, The Hedonists and Old Stone during the 11-day festival.

"China’s market is massive and the Canadian film market is much smaller by comparison,” Handling added. "Hopefully more Canadian films can go to China’s market and China’s films can take on the North American market.”

According to Handling, a lot of selling was going on in Toronto during the TIFF — at least 20 films have been sold around the world and more deals will be signed in the coming days. "It’s a major healthy year for film sales,” he said.

This was the 39th year that Toronto audiences were able to cast a ballot for their favourite film of the festival for the Grolsch People’s Choice Award. This year the award went to Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.

renali@chinadailyusa.com