In fact, the Toronto International Film Festival is starting to feel like the centre of the film world again for the first time since Corona, says our Canadian author Jason Gorber, who sheds light on how the 49th TIFF has gone so far and what has been talked about.
We are more than midway through this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and while the final films have yet to play, the second half is certainly when the majority of international press and the stars clear the way. It makes this portion of the fest match the level of exhaustion that many of us feel, ending more on a trickle than with some late-in-fest surprises.
Still, there are excellent opportunities to catch things that have not been able to fit into the schedule, and the focus back on the films themselves is actually supremely beneficial for those of us that actually live in Toronto.
Looking through the lens of an industry or press patron, this year’s scheduling was even more egregious, with the vast majority of the big hitting titles screening in the same early morning slots, leaving the evenings almost exclusively for public screenings. With the ability to pull tickets for certain badge holders in advance this is less of an issue, but that in turn of course prevents actual patrons of being able to watch the sections. I, for one, do not begrudge any forced to watch a film from the corner balconies at Roy Thompson Hall, and would welcome serious consideration of a venue switch to a more acceptable location for the big prems.
Those public screening were certainly more packed than last year (“sell outs” often do not correspond with “people in seats”), and while the dearth of food trucks an other draws that made King Street more bustling in previous years, there was still a general sense of things at least approaching a pre-COVID normalcy as the days wore on.
The films themselves have been, like for much of 2024, a mixed bag. As mentioned in my earlier post, it’s pleasing to see the major heavy hitters from Telluride and Venice making it here, unlike the dire circumstances in 2023 that saw far too many films skip Toronto all together. If there was any justice then Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night” should have made its debut here, but the late addition of this Sony title is certainly a welcome one, and it actually stands a decent chance at an audience award.
My love of “The Life of Chuck” seems increasingly an outlier (I hear such dismissals as “I don’t like narration” from some colleagues), but I can still hold out hope the film finds the audience it deserves. I was told by the editor of this publication not to sleep on “The Wild Robot”, and was transfixed by a film that looked like it would be nothing but a silly rip-off of similarly exceptional Disney/Pixar fare like “Wall-E” and “Zootopia”.
I was not swayed by “Nightbitch”, finding it more toothless than its premise and its source material would suggest, and despite an exceptional turn by Amy Adams the film never quite manages to let its howl loose. I managed to avoid many of the true duds, but if I can help people avoid Edward Burns’ “Miller’s in Marriage” then my mission will be accomplished. I skipped out on Nacho Vigalando’s “Daniella Forever” due to similar warnings from trusted voices, and the opener “Nutcrackers” continued a long line of similarly egregious selections at that slot (while we long for the likes of “Looper” to be placed there in a future festival).
Documentaries play a major role here, and some of the most controversial generated a lot of the conversation from well outside the festival bubble. A court case tried in vain to prevent “The Bibi Files” from showing in part because of the use of leaked testimony that producer Alex Gibney and director Alexis Bloom incorporated into this crime story. The premiere went off without a hitch, the audience primarily composed of local Israeli-Canadians interested in finally seeing the visuals of testimony that’s long been known to those informed about Israeli local politics.
Another film, the Canadian production titled Russians at War that debuted at Venice, caused a massive raucous within the Ukrainian community, with many decrying the programming choice that many had assumed (incorrectly) was a mode of pro-Russian propaganda or even funded by dark money from the region. The film had to be yanked right ahead of its premiere due to credible threats against the festival. The protest of films that haven’t actually been viewed is usually egregious on its face, but the complete misunderstanding of the nature and the far more nuanced take that the film provides would be comical if it weren’t so obviously misguided. The feckless cancellation of the film by TV Ontario, the provincial network that’s also a funder of the film, is a clear indication of the loudest voicing winning the day, no matter the salience of their arguments.
Even “Piece by Piece”, the fabulous Lego-fied biographical doc about Pharell helmed by Oscar-winner Morgan Neville, was not without disruption. A protester decrying the use of fur by the fashion houses in which the singer/producer is associated interrupted the Q&A, though his patient handling of the individual managed to deflect the repeated slogans by admitting that deeper conversations about change were already taking place.
Two others docs that were on paper prone to controversy proved to be among the most entertaining and erudite of the lot. Steve Pink’s “The Last Republican” pits the helmer of “Hot Tub Time Machine” in conversation with Adam Kinzinger, the Republican congressperson put his ideals over his job while challenging Donald Trump’s actions on January 6th, and “Man at War”, a fascinating Neon production that plays like an adventure movie tracing the actions of a former Green Beret who gormlessly attempted a failed coup to topple the Venezuelan regime.
The feeling of film’s missed out on is all the more acute even with a few days remaining, but with most of the heavy hitters taken in, and a few surprises hopefully still to come, it’s still slightly too early to pass judgement on the fest. At the least, it’s clear above all there’s far palpable feeling that TIFF at the least creeping back to being during its running time the heart of the cinematic universe, and even if some of the best titles already bowed elsewhere, it’s here in this massive public festival that the films truly find their desired audience, and in this second half that’s where the focus is more firmly set.
Jason Gorber