After all the hoopla surrounding George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Madonna, the Toronto International Film Festival wrapped its 36th edition with prizes for a number of lesser-known films and stars.

The $15,000 Cadillac People’s Choice Award went to Where Do We Go Now? about a group of Lebanese women trying to protect their village from religious violence through inventive schemes. It’s the second feature from writer/director Nadine Labaki, whose film Caramel played TIFF in 2007.

The People’s Choice Award is often an Oscar bellwether. Last year’s winner, The King’s Speech, won four Academy Awards including best picture. Two years earlier, Slumdog Millionaire took the prize and went on to win best picture and seven other Oscars. This year’s People’s Choice runners up were A Separation by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, and Starbuck by Quebec’s Ken Scott.

The People’s Choice documentary award went to Jon Shenk’s The Island President, about the leader of the Maldives, who attended the festival along with the film. Runners up were Bess Kargman’s First Position, about ballet dancers, and Pearl Jam 20 by Cameron Crowe. The People’s Choice Midnight Madness prize went to the martial arts film The Raid by Indonesian director Gareth Huw Evans. Runners up were You’re Next and God Bless America.

In the Canadian categories, the $15,000 Skyy Vodka prize for best first Canadian feature went to Nathan Morlando’s Edwin Boyd, which tells the story of the notorious 1940s Toronto bank robber and unlikely folk hero. A special citation went to Anne Emond’s Nuit #1. Philippe Falardeau’s Monsieur Lazhar, about an Algerian immigrant who becomes a Montreal teacher, won the City of Toronto award for the best Canadian feature, a prize worth $30,000.

Ian Harnarine’s Doubles With Slight Pepper won the best Canadian short film prize, with honourable mentions going to Mathieu Tremblay’s Of Events and No Words Came Down by Ryan Flowers and Lisa Pham.

The International Federation of Film Critics weighed in with awards given to Avalon by Sweden’s Axel Petersen in the Discovery program, and to The First Man by Italian director Gianni Amelio in the Special Presentations program.

Festival organizers announced additional film sales in what has been a fairly robust year for acquisitions. Titles that picked up distribution included The Awakening, Goon, The Hunter, Hysteria, Into the Abyss, Killer Joe, The Lady, This Is Not a Film, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Terraferma.

National Post

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