(MENAFN- Arab Times) TORONTO Sept 15 (Agencies): 'The Imitation Game' a biopic about British mathematician and World War Two code-breaker Alan Turing won the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday. The film which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing took the Groslch People's Choice award for best film at the 39th edition of the festival. Accepting the award on behalf of director Morten Tyldum Elevation Pictures' Noah Segal said simply 'Yummy delicious' a reference to an audience member who had declared the same about Cumberbatch during a question-and-answer session following the film's screening during the festival. 'It was unnerving but true' said Segal. The award which is chosen by audience members and has in the past gone to Oscar best picture winners such as 'Slumdog Millionaire' and last year's '12 Years a Slave' will likely ramp up the buzz around the film. In the movie Turing is the brilliant mathematician who breaks the Germans' Enigma code helping to bring the war to an end. He took his own life at 41 after he was convicted for being a homosexual. Cumberbatch one of the most sought-after actors in film and television gave an immediate 'yes' to playing Turing he told Reuters last week. 'There is a huge burden an onus of responsibility' the 38-year-old Englishman said. 'This was an extraordinary man and sadly bizarrely not that well known a man of his achievements.' The runner-up for the prize was 'Learning to Drive' a film about a Manhattan writer played by Patricia Clarkson who finds comfort in her lessons with a Sikh driving instructor played by Ben Kingsley. 'St Vincent' starring Bill Murray took second runner-up. The People's Choice award for top film in the Midnight Madness program which often showcases horror and offbeat films went to 'What We Do in the Shadows' a mockumentary about vampires living in a New Zealand suburb. Attention 'I'd like to use this forum to bring attention to a more serious matter: the disgusting sport of vampire hunting' said co-director and co-star Jemaine Clement. The People's Choice award for top documentary went to 'Beats of the Antonov' which follows refugees from the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains in Sudan. Started in 1976 the Toronto festival now ranks with Cannes and Sundance as one of the world's top movie gatherings. The festival often serves as a launching point for films and performances that go on to win Academy Awards as well as international films seeking distribution deals. This year saw the festival's highest film sales after a bidding war ended with Paramount buying Chris Rock's 'Top Five' for a reported $12.5 million organizers said. Forty-one film sales have been announced so far including 24 major sales to US distributors. Morten Tyldum's World War II-era drama also stars Keira Knightley Matthew Goode and Allen Leech of the hit television series 'Downton Abbey' and features a rare German Enigma code machine from the war. 'There was something very subtle uncompromising and unusual about (Turing) but also very quiet and stoic' Cumberbatch who has been generating Oscar buzz for his portrayal of the computer sciences pioneer said earlier this week in Toronto. 'He didn't knowingly martyr himself. He was just true to himself. He didn't see himself as a victim or a hero he just did work and behaved true to his nature.' 'Imitation' was not the only biopic to earn rave reviews in Toronto. 'The Theory of Everything' based on a memoir by Stephen Hawking's first wife Jane saw British actor Eddie Redmayne play a star turn as a young Hawking as a student. Film portrayals of Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer and notorious Colombian cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar were also well-received. Jury prizes went to the cinematic love letter 'Margarita with a Straw' 'Time Out of Mind' starring Richard Gere and 'France!' about disenfranchised youth. The Toronto Film Festival posted a record industry delegate attendance more than 5000 from 80 countries and its highest film sales to date after a bidding war for the distribution rights for Chris Rock's 'Top Five.' In total 41 films were scooped up and will be released in theaters and online over the coming months including 'Before We Go' 'The Cobbler' 'Maps to the Stars' and 'Sunshine Superman.' From dramas about mentors and their apprentices to imaginative musicals biopics and documentaries music underpinned an eclectic swathe of movies appearing at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. These ranged from high profile galas like Francois Girard's 'Boychoir' and the Canadian premiere of Sundance favorite 'Whiplash' to Ethan Hawke's intimate and well received study of a former concert pianist. Girard who also made 'Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould' and 'The Red Violin' said he does not want to be pigeonholed as a director of music-related projects but that once again a story centered around this theme spoke to him. 'Music is important to all film makers. It's a very important part of the film vocabulary and we all cherish the tool' Girard told Reuters. 'I trust music more than the words when it comes to depicting emotions.' Girard's 'Boychoir' and director Damien Chazelle's semi-autobiographical 'Whiplash' both portray students striving for greatness under genius teachers one simply demanding and one monstrously abusive. In 'Whiplash' which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival Chazelle uses drumming as a visual and tension-building tool to drive the film to its energetic climax. In 'Boychoir' the focus is on voice and the efforts of a traditionalist choirmaster played by Dustin Hoffman to bring harmony to the life of an angry orphaned 11-year-old attending an exclusive boarding school. The heartbreak of broken dreams form the basis of two musicals which had their world premieres at 11-day festival which ends on Sunday: Richard LaGravenese's 'The Last Five Years' and Jeffrey St. Jules' debut feature 'Bang Bang Baby'. 'The Last Five Years' is a sung-through musical chronicling the failed relationship between a struggling actress and her successful author husband while 'Bang Bang Baby' is a surreal take on the aspirations of a small town girl in the 1960s. LaGravenese told audience members at a screening of the film based on Jason Robert Brown's off-Broadway production that having the cast sing live was a crucial component. 'It's the only way you can do it because it's so emotional it's so intimate' he said. Other music-related projects making their world debuts in Toronto included 'Love and Mercy' a biography of Beach Boy Brian Wilson covering his creative peak in the 1960s and painful recovery from mental illness and addiction and 'Roger Waters: The Wall.' The latter documents the monumental and pyrotechnic three-year concert series launched by the Pink Floyd co-founder. By contrast in Hawke's documentary 'Seymour: An Introduction' the titular pianist Seymour Bernstein shares valuable life lessons on the role of music. 'We all know passion joy sadness longing. We all know those emotional conditions. Music encapsulates all of human emotion in a way more succinctly even than words do' Bernstein told Reuters. 'It affords the performer a means of communicating in a way that you can't communicate in any other form.' Also: LOS ANGELES: It's been more than ten years since Ben Stiller's Derek Zoolander posed on the big screen but it sounds like prospects of a 'Zoolander' sequel are heating up. Will Ferrell who appeared in the 2001 comedy as an evil fashion designed named Mugatu offered an update recently and even dropped the info that his villain could be returning. 'We are actually supposed to do a read-through of a sequel script soon and Mugatu is a part of it' Ferrell told JoBlo. While there's been no official confirmation that a sequel is in fact happening the players involved including Stiller and Justin Theroux have not been shy about talking about it especially in the past year. In June Stiller who directed as well as starred in the first movie told journalists at Taormina that his production company Red Hour Films was 'actively' working on a rewrite. 'I can't say that it's actually a reality yet but I hope some day it is' he said at the time. 'It's been about 10 years now. It's going to be old Derek Zoolander.' In a recent interview with Vulture Theroux dropped what could be even more promising hints and said that Stiller will likely helm again if the sequel comes to fruition. 'Yeah we've got a script for the sequel and we've just been in talks again' he said. 'We're trying to sharpen it and hone it and actually I don't want to jinx anything but it looks like it actually might be starting to get up and running.' Along with Stiller and Ferrell the first movie also starred Owen Wilson Christine Taylor Milla Jovovich Jerry Stiller and Jon Voight and culled $60 million at the box office. LOS ANGELES: While David Fincher's 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' pulled in $232 million in 2011 there's been no official confirmations that the next two books in the Stieg Larsson trilogy 'The Girl Who Played With Fire' and 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Next' will be adapted into English-language films (the Swedish versions came out in 2009). However Fincher revealed recently that he has hope for the possibility. The director said that Sony the producer of 'Dragon Tattoo' would likely do 'something' with the work that's already been done on the sequels. 'I think because (Sony) already has spent millions of dollars on the rights and the script it will result in something' he told Swedish site Afton Bladet (via Film Divider which provided translation) talking about Steven Zaillian's screenplays. 'The script that we now have has huge potential. I can reveal that it is extremely different from the book' he went on. The original English-language 'Dragon Tattoo' starred Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig and won various accolades including a best actress Oscar nomination for Mara. Meanwhile though Fincher is busy promoting another adaptation: 'Gone Girl' based on Gillian Flynn's bestseller and coming out Oct 3.
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