娱乐英语新闻:Silver Linings Playbook voted as audience favorite at TIFF

TORONTO, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- The 37th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) wrapped up on Sunday with an awards ceremony honoring some of this year's filmmakers.

Known as the world's largest public film festival, awards were handed out based not only on favorites of industry insiders, but also the top picks of festival-goers as well.

The crowd favorite this year went out to David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook. Taking away the coveted People's Choice Award this year, this romantic dramedy stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in their journey towards rebuilding their broken lives. The film also has a stellar supporting cast, with Robert De Niro, Chris Tucker and Julia Stiles all taking on roles in this emotional and comedic story.

The film, set for release in the United States and Canada on Nov. 21, premiered at TIFF last week. It's already received some praise from movie critics and is generating quite a buzz. There were a number of films vying for the award, including Ben Affleck' s Argo, a story about a daring rescue of American embassy employees trapped in Iran, which came up as the first runner up for the award, and Eran Riklis' Zaytoun, taking the spot as the second runner up.

With Silver Linings Playbook voted as the official crowd favorite on Sunday, TIFF's artistic director Cameron Bailey says he wasn't too surprised judging by the response it received at the festival.

"This is a film I think the audience embraced from the first time it had its world premier here in Toronto," he says. "They loved it, they were moved by it, they laughed , they cried, and that's exactly the kind of film that wins the People's Choice Award here and often go onto greater success."

Previous People's Choice Award winners like Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech and many others have all gone on to winning prestigious awards around the world. Bailey says it's an award many people look forward to as an indicator to its future success.

"This is the start of the awards season in North America, and a lot of people are watching this award. Of course it's been won by films like The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire in the past, so people are watching to see if this film goes on to that kind of success," says Bailey. "We can never predict these things, we're just happy the Toronto audience have discovered this film and embraced it."

Awards were also handed out for the best Canadian short film, feature film, and for the very first time this year, an award for the best first feature world or international Asian film premiere was given out to promote Asian cinema. Sion Sono's The Land of Hope took away the inaugural NETPAC Award.

The awards ceremony marks the end of the annual 11-day film festival, which brought with it filmmakers and celebrities from all across the globe to Toronto from Sept. 6 to 16.