In the last two decades, Toronto has gained a
reputation for breaking widely acclaimed foreign and domestic films like Diva, The Big Chill, Chariots of Fire and, most recently, American Beauty. If it breaks in Toronto, the Hollywood hype machines begin to roll right through the autumn and into Oscar season. Like the ultimate focus group, the Toronto International Film Festival has for years provided film buyers,
distributors, and industry analysts with an unparalleled opportunity to gauge both public and critical response.
In Toronto, when audiences speak, the industry listens and, more often than not, the cash registers start to roll. Of course, the public isn’t always right when it comes to box office. Remember, just a few short years ago in 1994, Antonia Bird’s Priest won the coveted Most Popular Film award and was devoured by
distributors. When Miramax rushed its
theatrical release shortly thereafter, the film bombed. It seems the U.S. just wasn’t ready for a witty, subversive and graphic look at Catholicism and homosexuality, particularly when the two are joined so closely at the hip.
Unlike many of the more feted world film festivals – Berlin, Venice, New York, and
particularly Cannes – Toronto has enjoyed a reputation as a “people’s festival,” propelled to its current lofty stature through the efforts of fanatical film enthusiasts and a public
willing to endure both long queues and the fickle charms of Canadian autumn to
experience the thrill of spectatorship. For Toronto audiences, it’s not about the stars, the box office, or the parties; it’s about films, filmmakers and dialogue.
In the last decade, though, as Toronto secured its position as a top-five world
festival, it has become a destination for stars, their handlers, and far too many publicists attached to mobile phones. Even more disturbing are the emerging stars – the marketers and buyers that, with the right film and a carefully targeted campaign, can virtually buy an Oscar. Shakespeare in Love, anyone? Contrary to popular belief, its only real star was Harvey Weinstein.
While the stargazers are giving the cinephiles a run for their money, the heart of the festival remains the films. Hollywood’s angel dust might glitter a little more brightly in the spotlight, but once the curtain goes up, the silver screen makes even an in-the-flesh Gwyneth look a trifle, well, ordinary. No matter, for film lovers this is exactly the way it should be. The undiscovered gems might not get the ink that major Hollywood premieres command, but each year they successfully capture the hearts and minds of Toronto audiences. Can it last?
A Fine Balance: Quantity and Quality
After twenty-five years, the Toronto International Film Festival may be a lot more shrewd about the business of selling its wares, but the remarkable thing is that both the quantity and quality of the films remains intact. Many of the films presented in Toronto in 2000 – 178 of 329 films – were world or North American premieres. That demonstrates the vitality and strategic importance of Toronto as a major venue for kickstarting
theatrical runs and buyer frenzy. As long as the stars, the buyers and audiences continue to show up, you can guarantee that this high percentage of premieres will continue to grow, even as competition on the global
festival circuit heats up. That’s good news for Toronto, and even better news for the
moviegoers.
Perhaps the biggest and most deserved success in 2000 was Ang Lee’s magnificent martial arts epic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, winner of the People’s Choice award. Now the highest grossing foreign language film in history, Lee’s film narrowly missed
winning Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards. It did successfully collect four major awards though, once again reinforcing the strategic importance of Toronto as a major commercial platform. In international terms, Toronto is now the vital second link between Cannes, which is not open to the general film-going public, and commercial release. That’s one reason why you don’t see the critical favourites from Cannes released in North America until their premieres in Toronto. Think of Toronto as the acid test – not foolproof,
but a reliable indicator of commercial appeal.
The real question is whether Toronto can maintain its track record for balancing the business of movies with the demands of Toronto’s reputation as a people’s festival.
We now have 24-hour coverage of press
conferences on local television, an unstoppable parade of, as Edina Monsoon of Absolutely Fabulous might say, “A-list visibles,” and an increasingly narrow range of coverage by Toronto’s major news outlets. In a word: Hollywood.
Rampant commercialization isn’t just challenging Toronto though. Sundance, once the quaint mountain-town festival of small, distinctly non-commercial independent films, is now a breeding ground for hip, commercially viable fare like the recently released Memento. In early 2001, Sundance came under fire for losing sight of what the term “independent” actually means: entrepreneurial spirit, financial distress, and unassailable critical instincts immune to the power of the Hollywood studio system.
What’s typically ironic is that Hollywood has so shrewdly embraced both festivals, co-opting their uniqueness and turning it into an “angle.” It makes good copy and it does good business, so why not? Films, and film festivals, can only continue to operate if they’re making money. Naturally, the irony is that the independent spirit that attracted Hollywood in the first place is quickly being consumed and transformed into a kind of quasi-independence – creative freedom at arm’s length (sounds a bit like Canada’s arts programs, actually). It’s like calling Miramax an independent distributor, when they’re really yet another piece of a swollen entertainment conglomerate – Disney. Nobody learned faster than Hollywood distributors that independence sells. It’s now an inextricable part of the Sundance brand.
Vital Signs: Toronto and the Next Twenty-Five Years
Things aren’t yet quite so dire for Toronto. While Hollywood presses on, the festival continues to follow a path that somehow manages to keep its growth in check without succumbing to cynicism or hype. Part of Toronto’s success is a typically Canadian syndrome: an inferiority complex. No matter how many celebrities show up, each year Toronto seems genuinely surprised by its warm reception, as if it’s been just lucky twenty-five years in a row.
The lack of navel-gazing is a good thing; it keeps the festival’s organizers focused on the future, rather than revelling in the past. Already only a few short months away, planning for the 2001 Toronto festival is already well underway. Scheduled for
Sept. 6-15th, 2001, the festival is currently accepting admissions and putting the pieces together for the first festival of the next twenty-five years.
Judging by the way Toronto has managed its growth over the years, it’s fair to say that 2001 will be just like any other year – and that’s the only way global film lovers would have it.
