Spanish Queer Epic 'La Bola Negra' Wins Toronto Film Festival Audience Award

“La Bola Negra,” the Spanish queer epic chronicling the intertwined lives of three gay men, has won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The victory on Sunday confirms the film's trajectory as a significant contender for the upcoming Academy Awards.

TIFF's top award is determined by festival attendees and has historically served as a reliable indicator for Oscar nominations. Since 2012, nearly all recipients of the People's Choice Award have gone on to receive a best-picture nomination at the Oscars. An exception occurred in 2024 when Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation “The Life of Chuck” won the award. Last year, “Hamnet” secured the audience award before earning eight Oscar nominations.

Directed by the duo known as Los Javis (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo), “La Bola Negra” previously garnered acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival, where it shared the best director award with Paweł Pawlikowski for “Fatherland.”

Netflix acquired the film following its Cannes debut and has initiated a comprehensive awards campaign. The streaming giant is also facilitating an extended theatrical run for “La Bola Negra,” its longest to date. The film is scheduled to open in theaters on October 16 and will begin streaming on December 2.

"This is a deeply personal film but it also carries a message of the importance and necessity of expressing who you are," Los Javis stated on Sunday. "Knowing that audiences connected with it and made it their own is the greatest gift we could receive."

The first runner-up for the TIFF award was “I Play Rocky,” Peter Farrelly's comedy about the making of the film “Rocky.” Siân Heder's drama “Being Heumann,” focusing on disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann, was the second runner-up.

In the international film category, the People's Choice Award went to “Elsinore,” starring Andrew Scott as Scottish actor Ian Charleson, who performed “Hamlet” in London while living with AIDS. The first runner-up in this category was “Possible Love,” a South Korean drama by Lee Chang-dong exploring the trauma of mass layoffs. Second runner-up was “The Assassin(s),” a Korean procedural by Hur Jin-ho.

“Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been,” a documentary portrait of the 85-year-old vocalist, received TIFF's People's Choice Award for documentary. The audience award for the festival's Midnight Madness section was presented to “Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney,” a documentary by Matthew Rankin about the former Canadian prime minister.

The 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival concluded on Sunday.