´Green Book´ wins Toronto film festival audience prize

TORONTO, Canada: Peter Farrelly´s "Green Book," starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, won the Toronto International Film Festival audience prize on Sunday, giving it a lead in the race for Oscar glory.

The film follows a working-class Italian-American bouncer who takes a job chauffeuring an African-American classical pianist through the US South in the 1960s, because it is too dangerous to travel alone.

"I´m still reeling from the response to the film (in Toronto) so this is incredible," Farrelly said in a statement.

"This win is beyond my wildest dreams."

The film beat out Alfonso Cuaron "Roma" (second runner up) and Barry Jenkins´s "If Beale Street Could Talk" (first runner up) for the festival´s top prize.

Based on a true story, the film tells of Don Shirley (Ali), the well-dressed son of a Jamaican immigrant family who carries himself with the confidence of a prince, and speaks perfect English but is, according to a write-up by festival organizers, "not built for the brutal bigotry of his time."

So he hires street-fighting loud-mouthed Tony "Lip" Vallelonga (Mortensen) to accompany him on his journey, guided by the Negro Motorist Green Book to safe hotels and restaurants in the segregated South.