Platform Prize
The Platform Prize is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to films of "high artistic merit that also demonstrate a strong directorial vision."[1] Introduced in 2015, the award is presented to a film, selected by an international jury of three prominent filmmakers or actors, from among the 12 films screened in the Platform program. Only one winner is selected each year, although as with TIFF's other juried awards the jurors have the discretion to give an honorable mention to another film besides the overall winner.
The winner of the Platform Prize receives $25,000 from the award's current corporate sponsor, Air France.[2]
According to festival programmer Cameron Bailey, the Platform program and prize were established because "films are passing through the festival without the attention they deserve".[3] He compared Platform's intentions to the Cannes Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight and Un Certain Regard streams rather than its Palme d'Or award,[3] indicating that it was meant to provide a platform for distinctive or innovative films but not to supplant the People's Choice Award as the top award at the festival.
Critical response
The film magazine Screen International convenes its own unofficial panel of film critics, who are assigned to watch all the Platform films and conduct their own independent vote on which film should win the award.[4] Their panel in 2017 selected Warwick Thornton's Sweet Country, the same film that won the prize,[5] but their panel in 2018 split between two films, Benjamín Naishtat's Rojo and Emir Baigazin's The River,[6] while the festival jury awarded the prize to Ho Wi Ding's Cities of Last Things;[7] the jury did, however, give The River an honorable mention.
Other critics have questioned whether the Platform Prize has been effective at accomplishing its stated goals at all.[3][8] Canadian documentary filmmaker Alan Zweig, who won the inaugural Platform Prize in 2015 for his film Hurt, noted that while it was not the least successful film of his career in general release, the prize did not appear to give the film any major boost in distribution or box office sales over his other films.[8] The 2016 jury's choice of Pablo Larraín's Jackie has also been questioned by critics, in particular because the Platform lineup that year also included Moonlight, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.[8]
Films
† denotes a non-winning film which received an honorable mention from the jury.
References
- ↑ "TIFF reveals Cannes-centric jury for 2018 Platform competition". The Globe and Mail, May 10, 2018.
- ↑ "Air France signs with TIFF". Media in Canada, August 11, 2017.
- 1 2 3 "At TIFF, a competition that's still not competitive". The Globe and Mail, September 14, 2017.
- ↑ "'Rojo', 'The River' top Screen's final TIFF Platform jury grid". Screen Daily, September 13, 2018.
- ↑ "'Sweet Country' tops Screen’s Toronto Platform jury grid". Screen Daily, September 20, 2017.
- ↑ "TIFF 2018: Rojo deserves to win the Platform Prize". Now, September 15, 2018.
- 1 2 "TIFF 2018 Awards: ‘Green Book’ Wins the People’s Choice Award, Upsetting ‘A Star Is Born’". IndieWire, September 16, 2018.
- 1 2 3 "Will TIFF's Platform Prize ever take off?". Now, May 16, 2018.
- ↑ "‘Room’ wins TIFF People’s choice Award". Toronto Star, September 20, 2015.
- ↑ "TIFF People's Choice Award cements La La Land's place in Oscar race". Entertainment Weekly. September 18, 2016.
- ↑ Vlessing, Etan (17 September 2017). "Toronto: 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' Captures Audience Award"". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved 6 April 2018.