TORONTO — For the first time in Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival™ history, audiences were invited to vote for their favourite feature film. Festival-goers crowned Sturla Gunnarsson’s Monsoon the People’s Choice Award winner. The award is announced as TIFF wraps up 10 days of celebrating the nation’s cinema. From January 2 to 11, Toronto audiences were presented with screenings of the top 10 features, shorts and student short films of the year, introductions and Q&A sessions with filmmakers, along with free engagements and special events that included onstage conversations with actor Keanu Reeves, author Naomi Klein and filmmaker Avi Lewis. Now in its 14th year, the festival attracted the highest number of attendees to date.

Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival People’s Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award goes to Sturla Gunnarsson’s Monsoon. Part road movie, part spectacle, part drama, Monsoon is Gunnarsson’s meditation on chaos, creation and faith, set in the land of believers. The subject is the monsoon, the incomparably vast weather system that permeates and unifies the varied culture of India, shaping the conditions of existence for its billion inhabitants.

“I’m thrilled. Monsoon is probably the most personal film I’ve made, and it turns out to be a crowd-pleaser too,” said Gunnarsson. “This can only help our release.”

Monsoon opens February 27 at TIFF Bell Lightbox.