TFI Grantee 'The Imitation Game' Wins TIFF's People's Choice Award

Following high marks from critics at Telluride, TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund grantee The Imitation Game continued to ride the wave of positive buzz as it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and now today TIFF has awarded the film its People's Choice Award.

The film, directed by Morten Tyldum, starts Benedict Cumberbatch as math prodigy Alan Turing who joins a secret faction of the British Royal Navy tasked with solving the German's war code, Enigma, during World War II. Keira Knightley and also star.

The Weinstein Company will release the film on November 21.

Unlike most top-tier film festivals that hand out Grand Jury Awards to their top film, TIFF has always made their audience award winners (the Grolsch People's Choice Awards) the tops. And in a festival where many of the titles are vying for Oscar buzz, winning TIFF's top prize has been a big push for many titles. Last year's Best Picture winner 12 Year's A Slave took TIFF's audience award, other winners that have also taken home Oscar's biggest prize include Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech.

We'll have to wait until Oscar night on February 22 to see if that will continue.