Eastern Promises wins top prize at Toronto
Story by Jack Foley
DAVID Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises has won the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival.
The People’s Choice Award is voted for by film fans and is widely regarded as a useful indicator of possible Oscar success.
Eastern Promises beat the likes of The Golden Age, Michael Clayton and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford to the accolade.
It’s a tense and violent Russian mob drama set in London that reunites Cronenberg with A History Of Violence star Viggo Mortensen, as well as Naomi Watts and French actor Vincent Cassel.
The film is due to open the 51st London Film Festival on October 17.
Other films recognised at the closing night of the Toronto festival were another of the London Film Festival’s hot tickets Juno, a Canadian movie about teenage pregnancy directed by Jason Reitman and starring Ellen Page, JK Simmons and Jennifer Garner.
Body of War, a documentary from former US talk show host Phil Donahue, also took a prize, as did Spanish-Mexican production La Zona, by winning the international critics’ award.
Commenting on Cronenberg’s win, festival director Piers Handling said: “It’s great that it’s a Canadian film by one of our monsters.”
Cronenberg was not at the ceremony to accept the award, though, as he is currently in the US on a promotional tour for the film.