If you ever feel your entertainment choices might be a bit low-brow and unsophisticated, don’t worry. Sooner or later a film festival will come along to prove that they are, beyond all reasonable doubt.
Take the Toronto International Film Festival – TIFF. In what feels like an orgy of beard stroking contemplation, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s Spanish historical epic melodrama La Bola Negra has won the top prize of the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.
It is set across 1932, 1937, and 2017 as it explores the intertwined lives of three men bound by a shared thread of desire, sexuality, enduring pain and the lasting weight of their complex legacies.
Sounds wonderful, but also feels like it could probably do with an ex-special forces soldier who they really should have left alone.
Peter Farrelly’s I Play Rocky and Sian Heder’s Being Heumann took the runner-up spots, and the Andrew Scott-led Elsinore won the International People’s Choice Award.
These awards are widely regarded as the first signposting of awards season as we enter the final quarter of the year, with whoever wins these featuring highly in the running.
Other awards from the festival included Documentary People’s Choice winner – Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been – and Midnight Madness People’s Choice winner – Ladies And Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney.
All of which sounds woefully lacking in explosions. Also possibly needs more aliens.
La Bola Negra will be in cinemas from October 16th and arrives on Netflix on December 4th.
