La Bola Negra wins Toronto people's choice award — SkimNews
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- La Bola Negra, a Spanish queer drama, won the Toronto film festival's people's choice award, becoming the first foreign-language winner since Lebanon's Where Do We Go Now? in 2011
- Directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi said the Toronto audience response was "the greatest gift we could receive"; the film spans 1932, 1937, and 2017, following interconnected gay men's lives
- The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw gave the film four stars at Cannes, calling it "handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed"
- Netflix acquired US rights after a competitive bidding war following the Cannes premiere in May, with the film set for release later this year
- The Toronto audience award is a longstanding Oscar bellwether — past winners Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Nomadland, Slumdog Millionaire, and The King's Speech all took best picture; last year's winner Hamnet earned 8 nominations including best actress for Jessie Buckley
- Runners-up were I Play Rocky (Sylvester Stallone biopic) and Being Heumann (disability activism drama); Britain's 80s-set Aids drama Elsinore won the international people's choice award
Why it matters: La Bola Negra's Toronto win positions Netflix for a serious foreign-language Oscar push — the audience award has predicted best picture for past winners Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Nomadland, Slumdog Millionaire, and The King's Speech. Last year's Toronto winner Hamnet earned 8 nominations including best actress for Jessie Buckley, confirming the award's predictive power after Netflix paid for US rights in a competitive bidding war.
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