The Platform Prize is an annual film award, presented by the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', May 10, 2018. Introduced in 2015, the award is presented to a film, selected by an international jury of three prominent filmmakers or actors, from among the films screened in the Platform program. The program normally screens between eight and twelve films; only one winner is selected each year, although as with TIFF's other juried awards the jurors have the discretion to give honorable mentions to other films besides the overall winner. In 2024, the jury for the first time chose to give out a special honorable mention to an individual performer in one of the Platform films.
The winner of the Platform Prize receives $25,000 from the award's current corporate sponsor,
Air France
Air France (; legally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France, and is headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. The airline is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and is one of the founding members ...
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', September 14, 2017. He compared Platform's intentions to the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world.
Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...
's
Directors' Fortnight
The Directors' Fortnight (, formerly ) is an independent section held in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festival as a ...
and
Un Certain Regard
(; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob.
The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
streams rather than its
Palme d'Or
The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...
award, indicating that it was meant to provide a platform for distinctive or innovative films but not to supplant the
People's Choice Award
The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show, recognizing people in entertainment, voted online by the Fan (person), fans and Public, general public. The show has been held annually since 1975, with the winners originally determined us ...
as the top award at the festival. The award is named after filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke's 2000 historical drama.
After the award is announced, the festival offers a repeat screening of the winner at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on the final day of the festival.
Critical response
In some years, the film magazine ''
Screen International
''Screen International'' is a British film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by Media Business Insight, a British B2B media company which also owned '' Broadcast''.
The magazine is primarily aimed at those involv ...
'' has convened its own unofficial panel of film critics, who were assigned to watch all the Platform films and conduct their own independent vote on which film should win the award. Their panel in 2017 selected
Warwick Thornton
Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. His debut feature film '' Samson and Delilah'' won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awar ...
Alan Zweig
Alan Zweig is a Canadians, Canadian documentary filmmaker known for often using film to explore his own life.
Early life
Alan Zweig was born and raised in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario and has worked in the film industry as a writer, producer, di ...
, who won the inaugural Platform Prize in 2015 for his film '' Hurt'', noted that while it was not the least successful film of his career in general release, the prize did not appear to give the film any major boost in distribution or box office sales over his other films. The 2016 jury's choice of
Pablo Larraín
Pablo Larraín Matte (; born 19 August 1976) is a Chilean filmmaker. He is known for directing films such as ''Neruda (film), Neruda'' (2016), ''Jackie (2016 film), Jackie'' (2016), ''Spencer (film), Spencer'' (2021), ''El Conde (film), El Cond ...
's '' Jackie'' has also been questioned by critics, in particular because the Platform lineup that year also included ''
Moonlight
Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes.
History
The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras was aware that "''the sun provides the moon with its ...
'', which went on to win the
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards (also known as Oscars) presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film a ...
.
Films
† denotes a non-winning film which received an honorable mention from the jury.