‘La Bola Negra’ Storms TIFF as Queer Epic Eyes Netflix’s First Best Picture Oscar

This is obviously Netflix's main horse in the Oscar race. Fincher's 'Cliff Booth' might contend, while Danny Boyle's "Ink" is starting to fade a bit after that buzzy Venice premiere.

Last night, Los Javis' "La Bola Negra" held a triumphant screening at TIFF's Princess of Wales Theatre, and the standing ovation reportedly lasted through the entire credits. This film will obviously get a Best Picture nomination (nobody is disputing that anymore), but can it become Netflix's first-ever Best Picture winner?

Based on buzz and vibes, the TIFF People's Choice Award, which will be announced on Sunday, seems to be a race between 'Bola Negra,' "I Play Rocky," "Club Kid," and "The Debut."

"The Black Ball," which stars Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, and Milo Quifesis, with Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close in supporting roles, is an ambitious but wildly uneven 2.5-hour Spanish drama that blends historical fiction, queer melodrama, and meta-literary adaptation. I didn't find it particularly impressive. It plays like a Weinstein-era Oscar-bait vehicle, only in Spanish, and is likely to divide critics' groups. It's technically well made, self-important in its messaging, and ultimately dull in stretches.

Spanning 85 years of Spanish history, from the 1930s to the present, "La Bola Negra" is inspired by an unfinished fragment by Federico García Lorca and Alberto Conejero's play "La piedra oscura." Directed by Los Javis, the film follows three gay men in 1932, 1937, and 2017 whose lives are linked by desire. The title refers to the black ball used to reject a young gay man from a Granada social club. That is the premise of Lorca's play, his first with an explicitly gay protagonist, which was left unfinished when he was killed.

Netflix recently decided to give "La Bola Negra" a very serious theatrical run and, by its standards, a historic one. The Spanish-language Oscar hopeful will hit theaters October 16 before arriving on Netflix December 2. That gives the queer epic a 47-day exclusive theatrical window, the longest in Netflix history, at least until next year's 'Narnia.'

Netflix won U.S. rights to "La Bola Negra" in a Cannes bidding war after the film premiered in competition and ultimately tied for the festival's Best Director prize. It’s now a best picture contender with “The Odyssey,” “Project Hail Mary,” “The Invite,” and “The Debut.”