Room, Lenny Abrahamson’s film adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s Man Booker Prize-nominated novel, was the big winner at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, taking home the People’s Choice Award at the fest-concluding ceremony Sunday.
Donoghue also penned the screenplay for the drama, which stars Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as a young mother and son returning to the outside world after being held captive for five years. Joan Allen and William H. Macy co-star; director Abrahamson’s previous film was last year’s festival fave Frank.
Room will open in New York and Los Angeles on October 16th, with a nationwide roll-out following on November 6th.
The category’s second runner up was Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, with first runner up going to Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses. In the Midnight Madness division, Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore was the big winner, with Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room second runner up and Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls first runner up.
Room’s documentary counterpart in the People’s Choice Awards is Evgeny Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, which will premiere on Netflix next month. Second runner up went to Brian D. Johnson’s Al Purdy Was Here; first runner up is Avi Lewis’s This Changes Everything.