La Bola Negra wins Toronto film festival people’s choice award

Read the original at The Guardian ↗
Cite

Lee, B. (2026, September 20). La Bola Negra wins Toronto film festival people’s choice award. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/20/la-bola-negra-toronto-film-festival

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

The Guardian · collected 2026-09-20 · by Benjamin Lee

Quick Summary

La Bola Negra, a Spanish queer drama set across three different years, has been awarded the people's choice prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was highly praised by critics and became the subject of a bidding war following its premiere in Cannes, with Netflix acquiring its distribution rights. Directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi expressed gratitude for connecting with Toronto audiences, noting it as an especially meaningful achievement given the award's history of predicting Oscar success.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-20, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

La Bola Negra, a Spanish queer drama directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023. The film, which spans three different time periods (1932, 1937, and 2017), tells the story of interconnected gay men. It previously premiered at the Cannes film festival, where it received a four-star review from The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. Netflix acquired the rights to the film in a competitive bidding war following its May premiere. Previous winners of this award include Oscar-winning films like Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, and Nomadland. The last foreign language winner was Lebanon’s Where Do We Go Now? in 2011.

Written for “La Bola Negra Wins TIFFAward” on 2026-10-23, grounded in this article and the 2 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 La Bola Negra Wins TIFFAward
Entertainment · 3 article(s) covering the same event. Compare every outlet's account →

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 31% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
'La Bola Negra' wins People's Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival same event · 100%
Toronto Star · 0.88 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 18 📰 publisher trust 64
“Both articles report on La Bola Negra winning the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival on the same day.”
La Bola Negra wins TIFF People's Choice Award same event · 100%
CBC News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 7 📰 publisher trust 74
“Both articles report on La Bola Negra winning the People's Choice Award at the Toronto film festival on the same date.”
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
13
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
31%
4 of 13 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
66/100
The Guardian's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
3
Entertainment
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-09-20 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

The Guardian · 2307 article(s) · 6 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 6 correction(s)
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Who wrote this

Benjamin Lee
2 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 “At two million bucks and with other actors that I don’t know about, this is a film that could have been directed by Ed Wood,” he said in a 2019 interview.
2026-10-22 · assertive framing · Tom Skerritt, Alien and Top Gun actor, dies aged 93
🔮 After a competitive bidding war after its premiere in May, Netflix picked up the rights and the film will be released later this year.
2026-09-20 · mixed framing · La Bola Negra wins Toronto film festival people’s choice award
Also by Benjamin Lee
Tom Skerritt, Alien and Top Gun actor, dies aged 93
2026-10-22 · The Guardian
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

Topics

Cannes film festival Guardian Netflix Spanish Toronto

Subjects

Toronto GPE · 3× Chloé Zhao’s PERSON · 1× Guardian ORG · 1× Javier Ambrossi PERSON · 1× Javier Calvo PERSON · 1× Lebanese NORP · 1× Netflix ORG · 1× Peter Bradshaw PERSON · 1× Shakespeare PERSON · 1× Spanish NORP · 1×

Narrative

The award has come to be used as a predictor of Oscar success with past best picture winners such as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Nomadland, Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech all picking it up.
framing: mixed · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-20
🔮 After a competitive bidding war after its premiere in May, Netflix picked up the rights and the film will be released later this year.
2026-09-20 · The Guardian
La Bola Negra wins Toronto film festival people’s choice award · mixed framing

Claims (13 extracted, 4 hedged)

Spanish queer drama La Bola Negra has won this year’s people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival. asserted
Negra → win → festival
The film, which takes place in 1932, 1937 and 2017, focuses on the lives of interconnected gay men. asserted
which → take → men
It premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival with the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw calling it “handsomely produced, lovingly detailed and confidently constructed” in a four-star review. asserted
Bradshaw → premier → review
After a competitive bidding war after its premiere in May, Netflix picked up the rights and the film will be released later this year. uncertain
film → pick → rights
In a prepared statement, directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi said that connecting with Toronto audiences in this way was “the greatest gift we could receive”. uncertain
we → prepare → way
It marks the first foreign language winner of the award since 2011’s Lebanese drama Where Do We Go Now? asserted
We → mark → Where
The award has come to be used as a predictor of Oscar success with past best picture winners such as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Nomadland, Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech all picking it up. asserted
all → come → it
Last year’s winner was Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare drama Hamnet which was nominated for eight Oscars, winning one for best actress Jessie Buckley. asserted
which → nominate → Buckley
Sylvester Stallone biopic I Play Rocky and disability activism drama Being Heumann were named this year’s runners-up. asserted
I → play → Rocky
For the second year, the international people’s choice award was also handed out with British 80s-set Aids drama Elsinore named as the 2026 winner. asserted
award → hand → winner
Last year’s was given to Park Chan-wook’s darkly comedic thriller No Other Choice. asserted
year → give → thriller
The Toronto winners come after May el-Toukhy’s suspense drama Woman Unknown won the Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival. uncertain
drama → come → festival
At Cannes back in May, Cristian Mungiu’s family drama Fjord won the Palme d’Or. uncertain
drama → win → d’Or
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