Jojo Rabbit: Nazi satire wins first prize in Toronto

The film Jojo Rabbit won the influential People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The satire of the Second World War about a young boy from the 1940s, Germany discovers that his mother hides a Jewish girl in their home. Scarlett Johansson and Roman Griffin Davis.

Johansson also appears in the film finalist, Marriage Story, in which she plays a mother and actress divorcing her husband theater director, played by Adam Driver.

The second finalist was Parasite, a South Korean comedy drama who earlier this year won the first prize, the Palme d 'Or, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jojo Rabbit's victory places him firmly in the 2020 Oscars because the Toronto Public Award, also known as the Audience Award, is considered a powerful indicator of success in the film's award season. Green Book, winner of last year, then won the award for best film at the Oscars.

Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech, and 12 Years A Slave, all of whom have been named best Oscar films, have also been winners of the previous audience.

His track record of predicting Oscar success makes it one of the most influential awards of the season. It was voted online by audience members at the festival, although organizers do not reveal exactly how the result is calculated.

The TIFF format indicates that it takes into account the proportion of total audience of a movie that votes it. And this ensures the validity of the vote by matching the votes to the IP addresses and matching the emails of the voters with the addresses used to buy tickets. However, some members of the public pay their tickets in cash without using an email address.

A spokesperson for TIFF said, "We care about our audience and want to know from all the people who interact with the TIFF what they think of our films, but the votes that can be verified will have more weight in the final notation. "

Jojo Rabbit is directed by Taika Waititi, who also directed the hit movie Marvel Thor: Ragnarok. The film will be screened at the London Film Festival in October and will be released in UK cinemas in January 2020.