That's a wrap

Best film

Steve McQueen's harrowing Hunger was a rarity: an unassailable audience and critical fave that is as emotionally powerful as it is inventive.

Most unpronounceable film title

Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. Say it together now: Sin-eck-duh-key.

Film most likely to induce bedsores

Che. You can learn more about the great revolutionary from his Wikipedia page than from Soderbergh's four and a half hour folly. Length does not equal ambition!

Happiest trend

The high percentage of female directors at this year's festival.

Most ubiquitous actor

Tie: John Malkovich and Mark Ruffalo. The hard-working pair showed up in three films each: Malkovich in Afterwards, Burn After Reading and Disgrace, Ruffalo in Blindness, The Brothers Bloom and What Doesn't Kill You.

Most unexpected comeback

Both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke returned to the big screen and great acclaim playing pitiable, washed-up versions of themselves. Rourke's turn in The Wrestler was somewhat more fictionalized, but his real-life plastic surgery made him the more tragic figure. To play himself in JCVD, Van Damme only dyed his hair.

Most heartbreaking child actor

Perla Haney-Jardine in Michael Winterbottom's Genova, as a little girl grieving her dead mother. Runner-up: Matteo Sciabordi, the Italian-ergo-adorable orphan in Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna.

Winner of the Ewan McGregor Prize for Gratuitous Nudity

Sook-Yin Lee, who bared all in Short Bus (TIFF 2006) and did so again this year in Toronto Stories.

Best opening statement by a director at a screening

The delightfully hammy Terence Davies, introducing his latest work, Of Time and the City: "I hope you like this film. And if you don't like this film, please send money."

Worst audience trend

BlackBerrys. Why aren't they as verboten as cellphones? The glow of the screens and the sound of people pecking at the teeny keyboards was a constant annoyance at press and industry screenings.

Best dust-up at a Q&A

While interviewing Quebec filmmaker Léa Pool about her picture Maman est chez le coiffeur, moderator Matthew Hays asked her about the effect of Stephen Harper's arts cuts. It prompted a flurry of grumpy heckling and even a few walk-outs from apparent Tory supporters in the audience. Kudos to Hays for sticking to his guns and generating some thoughtful debate and discussion amongst the remaining audience members.

Most emotional outburst

At the press conference for What Doesn't Kill You, actor Mark Ruffalo was reduced to tears as he described playing a crack addict in the film based on director Brian Goodman's early life.

Most athletic outburst

We already love Viggo Mortensen, but the protean actor endeared himself to us even more at this year's TIFF. Outside a screening for his new western Appaloosa, our man went off the leash, breaking free from his horrified handlers and sprinting across a busy downtown street to sign autographs for delighted fans on the other side.

Wackiest hair

Three-way tie: Keira Knightley's flaming tower of wig in The Duchess; Frances McDormand in Burn After Reading, a blond-and-longer version of Javier Bardem's bowl cut in No Country For Old Men; and Charlie Kaufman's natural coif.

Most bodacious beard

Larry Charles's ZZ Top special, winner for the third year running. Rumour has it that Charles, director of Borat and this year's Religulous, uses those luxuriant chin tendrils to conceal a mini-camera when shooting his hilarious "stalkumentaries."

Best comic relief

Seeing octagenarian French director Agnès Varda dressed in a giant potato costume in Les Plages d'Agnès.

Nastiest critical smackdown

No, it wasn't an acid review, but a literal smack. And it wasn't aimed at a film, but at a fellow critic. New York Post scribe Lou Lumenick allegedly struck Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Roger Ebert with a festival program after the latter tapped him on the shoulder during a screening because Lumenick was blocking his view. Ebert, who can't speak due to cancer surgery, played down the incident, but we'd like to paraphrase the title of one of Ebert's books and say: Lou, your manners suck.

Most anticipated star collision non-event

Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. Aniston was in town with the coming-of-age (age being 35) indie Management, while Pitt was backing the new Coen Brothers pic, Burn After Reading. Alas, the 'twain never met — at least not in public, with television cameras present.

Most surprising rapper-turned-movie exec

Those wondering why Beastie Boy Adam Yauch was in attendance at the first screening of the wonderful Wendy and Lucy should know that the 44-year-old MC is now also the CEO of Oscilloscope Pictures, a new film distribution company. Yauch's plan is to operate the company like an indie record label and its first releases will be Flow (a documentary about water issues) and, yep, Wendy and Lucy.

Best bit of CanCon in a non-Canadian film

In Rachel Getting Married, Tunde Adebimpe, the lead singer of the Brooklyn-based band TV on the Radio, serenades his bride with an a capella version of Neil Young's Unknown Legend.