La Bola Negra wins the Audience Award in Toronto, first challenger at The Odyssey
Spanish film La Bola Negra won the TIFF Audience Award, Netflix’s first win and a leading Oscar contender.
The 51st Toronto International Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday. La Bola Negra, a Spanish-language epic from Netflix, received one of the longest ovations in the festival’s history during its Canadian premiere on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Spain named it its best international feature for the Oscar race.
On Sunday, the film won the Audience Award, the first time a Netflix film has taken this trophy. While the Audience Award does not guarantee a nomination, the Toronto audience mirrors the Academy’s demographics, and every winner of this award in the past decade has earned at least one Best Picture Oscar nomination. The last non-English language film to win this award was fifteen years ago, Where Do We Go Now?, followed by The Life of Chuck two years ago, neither of which received a nomination.
