Watch for Where Do We Go Now? at the Oscars in February: many People's Choice Award winners at TIFF go on to win Oscars.

The 36th Toronto International Film Festival, which ended yesterday, September 18, announced its award recipients at a reception at the Four Seasons Hotel today.

Unlike the other major film festivals—Cannes, Venice, Berlin—TIFF is an audience-driven festival with over a quarter of a million viewers. And while TIFF does not award a "Golden Lion" or a "Palme d'Or," its People's Choice Award has become one of the most important awards in the film world, often signifying that the winning film has an Oscar in its future. American Beauty, Crash, Slumdog Millionaire, and last year's The King's Speech were all TIFF People's Choice winners.

This year, the big award went to Where Do We Go Now? by Lebanese Canadian director Nadine Labaki. It's a "heartwarming" story about Christian and Muslim women, set in a war-torn Lebanon. It has already been submitted as Lebanon's official entry for foreign language film at the upcoming Oscars.

The runners up for the People's Choice Award are A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi, and Starbuck, by Ken Scott.

As has been noted, the big Hollywood entries like The Ides of March with George Clooney did not show up in the awards list at TIFF.

Other awards include Best Canadian First Feature, to Nathan Morlando for Edwin Boyd; Best Canadian Feature, to Philippe Falardeau for Monsieur Lazhar; and the Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) for the Discovery programme to Axel Petersén for Avalon (Sweden).