Precious
More award success has come the way of Precious as it scooped the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival at the weekend.
The film, which is based on the Novel Push By Sapphire and produced by Oprah Winfrey, had already success at the Sundance Film Festival winning the Audience Award and the grand Jury Prize.
This time around it was the People's Choice Award for Lee Daniel's hard-hitting movie, and we all remember how last year's winner Slumdog Millionaire went on to dominate the awards circuit and win eight Oscars.
The movie follows teenager Precious Jones, played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, living in Harlem with her dysfunctional family; she has been impregnated twice by her father and is withstanding a hurtful relationship with her mother.
The movie will be screen at the London Film Festival next month.
But Toronto has a tradition of picking out Oscar winners and, along with Slumdog Millionaire, the likes of No Country For Old Men and American Beauty have both picked up the People's Choice Award before going on to scoop the Academy Award. Will Precious follow in their footsteps?
The performances from Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique, who plays her mother, are also expected to get some serious attention come awards season.
Mao's Last Dancer from filmmaker Bruce Beresford was named the first runner up while Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs was named second runner up.
The Topp Twins, which follows a pair of twin lesbian country music and comedy stars, picked up the awards for Best Documentary with Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story being named as runner up.
Cairo Time, which stars Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, won the $30,000 top Canadian film award while The Loved Ones won the Cadillac People's Choice Award for Midnight Madness.
But 2009 has been another success for the festival with the likes of Up In The Air, The Men Who Star At Goats, An Education and The Road are already creating Oscar whispers.
Other performances whipping up a storm in Toronto include Heath Ledger's final big screen role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Despite not being a complete performance, with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law all stepping in to complete the movie, there is actually more of Ledger than you would expect and Imaginarium is an eye catching movie that sees Gilliam back to his best.
Roll on London!
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Toronto Film Festival