Ang Lee Film Wins Top Honors At Toronto Fest

"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," director Ang Lee's wildly popular blend of an ancient Chinese martial arts fable and new-age digital special effects, won the prized People's Choice award at the end of the 25th Toronto International Film Festival.

The stylish Chinese-language picture, with star Chow Yun Fat, was applauded at both Cannes earlier this year and at the Toronto festival. In the past, winners of the award have often gone on to greater honors. Last year's Toronto fest winner, "American Beauty," ended up winning the Academy Award for best picture.

The $25,000 Toronto-City Award for best Canadian feature went to Alberta filmmaker Gary Burns for "Waydowntown," his wry and risky story of a group of office workers who make a bet to see who can stay indoors the longest.

"Oh man, it's beefy!" exclaimed an emotional Burns as he accepted the trophy and fought to keep from choking up at the podium.

"The festival has always been really good to me. It's weird, I've been really lucky," he added.

Afterward, Burns said that despite the honor, he finds awards a strange idea.

"Every film is different," he said. "It's not really fair; it's not like running a race or something."

Burns said that he'd use the prize money to pay bills and buy himself a new laptop computer.

The awards were announced at a Sunday brunch at the end of 10 days of festival screenings.

The Discovery award, voted on by the accredited media attending the festival, was a tie between "George Washington," American filmmaker David Gordon Green's lyrical look at life in the Deep South, and Baltasar Kormakur's "101 Reykjavik," an Iceland-Norway-Denmark-France co-production about sexual confusion among Icelandic youth.

The FIPRESCI Award, voted on by a jury of international film critics, went to "Bangkok Dangerous," a violent gangster film made by Thai twins Oxide and Danny Pang.

Festival director Piers Handling called the festival a "terrific event" this year with almost flawless organization. And he disputed suggestions that it is slowly being taken over by Hollywood studios or that it is becoming more of a film market than a festival.

"I don't think a lot of films were sold to the States," Handling told reporters. "I think a lot of business was done for non-North American territories. I know that for some of the European sales agents, it was better than Cannes."

But he added that the best reason to premiere a film here remains the enthusiastic Toronto audiences.

"It's a little too early to tell, but my sense is that it's probably about 275,000 to 300,000 admissions that came to the festival this year," he said.

Over its 10-day run, the festival screened more than 320 films, including a record 178 world and North American premieres.