Bush, "Bella" Top Toronto

TORONTO--Despite the buzz surrounding Hollywood-backed blockbusters like Brad Pitt's Babel and Sean Penn's All the King's Men, audiences and film jurors gave their top praise to two indies--one that flew in virtually under the radar, the other which squawked its way to the headlines.

The romance Bella won the People's Choice Award at the 31st Toronto International Film Festival, while while a panel of international critics gave their prize to the controversy-ready documentary-style fiction Death of a President, which depicts the assassination of President George W. Bush.

Bella, a sweet story about a down-on-his-luck former Mexican soccer player living in New York, who meets a struggling waitress when they both need a friend, captured the hearts of Toronto audiences. Winning the top prize for first-time director and first-time festival entrant Alejandro Gomez Monteverde was literally a dream come true...for his wife.

"Last night," he said during Saturday's award ceremony, "my wife woke me up celebrating and yelling in her sleep that we had won. Now, her dream has come true and I hope I am not still in her dream."

Death of a President, a fictional news special from British director Gabriel Range, took the International Critics Award even though the panel's presenter admitted the film was "irritating" to watch.

Range said the film was his "reflection" on America in the aftermath of the horrors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but didn't quite explain what reflections he hoped people would take away from his controversial film. What Range did take away, however, was a reported $1 million distribution deal with Newmarket Films, which also handled Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

A new award at the festival, the Swarovski Cultural Innovation Award, went to the Turkish film Takva--Man's Fear of God, a Turkish-German coproduction directed by Ozer Kiziltan, in which a 45-year old man's belief in and fear of God is tested in almost biblical fashion.

Reprise, a Norwegian film about two best friends who, as struggling writers, contend with the perils of early success and unrecognized potential, captured the Diesel Discovery Award, voted on by the 900-plus media who covered the festival.

Because of its wide range of films and the sophistication and dedication of the 300,000 people who can sit through more than 350 features and shorts, Toronto attracts an enormous number of stars and the people who make the stars.

Indeed, local media reported a black market had developed with 50 festival passes and gala invitations being marketed on the street and on eBay.

Gossip tongues wagged when Pitt showed up here sans Angelina Jolie, and when Penn lit up a cigarette during a press conference in this notoriously non-smoking city, causing the host hotel to pay a $560 fine. While America's current President was being fictionally shot, former President Bill Clinton was being feted on his fictional 60th birthday inside the Royal York Hotel. Though Clinton's birthday is Aug. 19, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Kevin Spacey and Tim McGraw turned up for the fundraising celebration.

Denise Massingale-Lamb used the Toronto festival to announce the launch of next year's Monaco Music and Film Festival to honor film music composers and run alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

With spotlights and camera lights sweeping across the downtown, film stars, directors and anyone who could get an invitation made their way to the dozen parties a night in places like Premiere Lounge at W Studios, the Rosewater Supper Club and Flow restaurant.

While no clear Oscar contenders emerged from Toronto like last year's Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Walk the Line, show business did plenty of business in Toronto.

Red Envelope Entertainment, a subsidiary of Netflix, announced a North American deal for The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, a film by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein that details the life of Iraqi journalist Yunis Khatayer Abbas, wrongly accused of plotting to kill the British prime minister.

The biggest seller, at just under U.S. $6 million, was El Cantante, a film about late salsa superstar Hector Lavoe starring Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony.

Other films announcing deals in Toronto included Sarah Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her getting snatched up by Lionsgate for a reported $1 million, and the Weinstein Company's pickup of three films: Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show and, for an estimated $4 million, the hip horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.

MGM, meanwhile, grapped North American rights for director Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, starring Christian Bale in the true story of an American Navy pilot who is captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. And the Canadian horror spoof Fido, about pet zombies, had reportedly sold rights to 70 percent of the world's markets by the time the festival closed.