Canadian award for Death of a President
Feature by Lizzie Guilfoyle
BRITISH director Gabriel Range’s controversial film Death of a President has picked up the critics’ best film prize at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.
The mock documentary about the supposed assassination of President Bush, is set in 2007 amid protests over the Iraq war and mixes archive footage with digital wizardry.
Although it received largely negative reviews, it was, according to the jury, awarded the Prize of International Critics “for the audacity with which it distorts reality, to reveal a larger truth.”
Death of a President was funded by Channel 4 and will be shown in the UK on October 9, 2006.
Meanwhile, the People’s Choice award went to Mexican director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde for Bella, a tale of two people who meet in New York and the impact they subsequently have on each others’ lives.
After receiving the award, Monteverde said: “This festival is my first. It’s my first film. It’s my first everything.” He has, in fact, previously made one short film Waiting for Trains although Bella, in which his wife Ali Landry takes a lead role, is his first feature film.
Last year’s winner was Tsotsi which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.
The Toronto Film Festival, which hosts hundreds of premieres, including many independent films, places emphasis on audience favourites rather than critics’ views.