La Bola Negra wins TIFF People's Choice Award — an epic about three men in Spain

La Bola Negra won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival — a prize that has long been a bellwether for Oscar buzz.

Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the film is an epic about the interconnected lives of three gay men in Spain.

Other major winners at the festival included Angh, which won the Platform Award, a jury prize that comes with a $20,000 purse. The film, directed by Theja Rio, focuses on the last surviving chief of a Nagaland village on the Indo-Burma border.

For the first time this year, the Platform Award offers a direct route to the Academy Awards. The Academy previously accepted only one submission from each country for Oscar consideration, but expanded its criteria to consider winners of qualifying awards at international film festivals. The Platform Award is one of six such prizes offering that pathway.

To qualify, at least half of a film must be in a language other than English. Angh, which is mostly in Konyak, meets that requirement and qualifies for best international feature Oscar contention.

Canadian filmmaker Cody Lightning won Best Canadian Discovery for his sophomore feature Smudge the Blades. "I come to you today with a heavy heart and beer on my breath," he said accepting the award. His mother, also a filmmaker, had died several weeks ago. "I get my humour from my dad, I get my storytelling from my mom. This one's for my mom. This one's for my mom. This one's for my mom," he said through tears.

Best Canadian Feature went to Sunburn by Serville Poblete, a coming-of-age film about a group of kids from Toronto's Bleecker Street.

Other People's Choice winners were Elsinore by Simon Stone for International People's Choice; Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney for Midnight Madness; and Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been by Barry Avrich for documentary. Avrich won the documentary prize for the second straight year — last year for The Road Between Us, about an Israeli general's rescue mission on October 7, 2023.

The FIPRESCI Prize, which recognizes first-time international filmmakers, went to Ancestors by Irish writer-director David Turpin, about an Irishman in London during the 1980s when homosexuality was still illegal in Ireland. The NETPAC Award, recognizing films from Asia and the Pacific, went to Thirteen in Gaza by Hosam Abu Dan, about a 13-year-old girl living in a refugee camp.