“American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson’s satire of race and media, captured the Toronto International Film Festival’s people’s choice award, bolstering its Oscars chances.
TIFF’s people’s choice award is considered to be among the best predictors of eventual awards success, though the 2023 festival hosted a weaker lineup than most years due to the writers and actors strikes that saw some prominent contenders skip a Canadian premiere. In the past, winners of the prize such as “Green Book,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Nomadland” went on to be named best picture at the Academy Awards. Other recipients, including “Belfast,” “La La Land,” “Jojo Rabbit,” and 2022’s winner, “The Fabelmans,” were all best picture nominees.
The people’s choice category was created in 1978. Seven recipients won best picture at the Oscars, with five of those victories coming in the past two decades.
“Dicks: The Musical,” a raunchy satire from “Borat” director Larry Charles, won the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. A24 will release the film later this month.
Alexander Payne’s boarding school dramedy “The Holdovers” was the first runner up for the People’s Choice Award, while Hayao Miyazaki’s animated coming-of-age story “The Boy and the Heron” was the second runner up.
“American Fiction” earned critical raves when it debuted at TIFF, with many reviewers singling out the performance of Jeffrey Wright as a college professor who achieves literary renown after penning an outrageous book about Black life that is unexpectedly hailed for being raw and true. Variety’s awards editor Clayton Davis predicted that the movie could resonate with Oscar voters and declared that the movie was “one of the finest directorial debuts seen since Sam Mendes’ ‘American Beauty.’”
Jefferson, who has been a writer on “Succession” and “Watchmen,” made his feature directing debut with the movie wrote the screenplay. It is based on Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, “Erasure.” MGM is releasing the film this year.
