On Sunday afternoon during an awards gala at TIFF, “The Imitation Game,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode, took the top prize for the Grolsch People’s Choice Award.
Cumberbatch stars as brilliant Cambridge mathematician, cryptanalyst and pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, who spearheaded the Enigma code-breaking operation during World War II and was later persecuted by the British government for his homosexuality.
“It’s a terrific story and it’s a story that’s not that well-known,” festival artistic director Cameron Bailey said of the winning film following the announcement (The Canadian Press). “You’ve got terrific direction – Morten Tyldum was here before with ‘Headhunters’ – and one of the best actors and stars in the world right now in Benedict Cumberbatch. [He plays] a man whose mind was instrumental in helping to end the Second World War early, who is one of the fathers of the computers that we all use today, and we don’t know much about him. The fact that he had to suffer as a result of his sexual orientation also is a drama that I think deserves to be told. This is a story with a lot of great elements to it.”
“Beats of the Antonov” Grolsch won the People’s Choice Documentary Award – director Hajooj Kuka immerses us in the world of the Sudanese farmers, herders and rebels of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountain regions, who defiantly celebrate their heritage and tend their lands in the face of a government bombing campaign. Best Canadian Feature Film went to “Felix and Meira,” which follows a young married woman from Montreal’s Orthodox Jewish community who finds freedom from the strictures of her faith through her relationship with a young man who is mourning the death of his estranged father.
TIFF wrapped up yesterday.
Photo: TIFF/The Imitation Game
