Toronto tempts with fest feast
Huge portions of pix offer plenty of cinema delicacies for distribs and fans
Over the past several years, Toronto has served up 75-80 world premieres annually, on a par with the other top international festivals.
At the edition just ended, which marked the event's 30th anniversary, roughly 120 films were introduced to the world out of 236 features shown overall. Even at the rigorous pace of four films per day, the most stalwart critic couldn't even see one-sixth of the pictures; Variety had eight critics in town just to cover the new ones.
How, then, to characterize such a massive jumble of cinematic expression?
At a competitive fest such as Cannes, Berlin or Venice, one can catch most of the competition titles along with some select noncompeting and sidebar items and come away with a reasonable assessment of where the cinema is at, and/or how well the festival is representing it.
At an intimate fest like Telluride, one can partake of the carefully selected prime offerings and get up from the table fully satisfied but not sated, perhaps even wanting more.
But Toronto is la grande bouffe, the endless meal where there might be as many bad courses as good ones, where you can run into some friends three times a day and easily go the entire long week without seeing others even once, so diverse are festgoers' gameplans.
Some feel they've got to see the big new titles in the Gala and Masters sections right away; this year, these people would have rushed to "Brokeback Mountain," "Capote," "Oliver Twist," "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and "Pride & Prejudice," among others.
Many journalists can get months' worth of interview copy at Toronto by treating it as the giant junket it most resembles on opening weekend, and they would have made a point of circling the talent accompanying the likes of "In Her Shoes," "Walk the Line," "Elizabethtown," "Proof," "Dreamer," "North Country" and "Edison."
Others made a point of entirely skipping films that already had distributors, knowing they'll be able to see them later, the better to catch more obscure works that may be difficult or impossible to see again, a category into which upward of 75% of the pictures probably fall.
And then there are the hungry distributors, trade-oriented scribes and regular folk anxious to discover potentially hot new titles. This year they were rewarded with "Thank You for Smoking," "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" (shown as a work-in-progress), "Trust the Man," "The World's Fastest Indian" and "Harsh Times," just for starters.
After three decades, Toronto had achieved its preeminence for several reasons:
- Although it has long had a rival festival in Montreal just before it (and this year has another one just after it), Toronto was destined to win the battle of the Canadian festival from the moment Anglo businesses and financial institutions quit Quebec in favor of Ontario due to the political situation.
- Most people like visiting here, viewing it as a safer, cleaner version of a U.S. city (less true than it used to be).
- Toronto audiences are famously enthusiastic and appreciative, which filmmakers and Hollywood distribs tend not to mind.
- Toronto is very user-friendly, well run and responsive to problems. After the dust-up three years ago when too many journos were being shut out of over-attended critics-and-industry screenings, the fest reacted quickly, this year extending itself to promptly add extra screenings when necessary. The press center was moved from the Delta Chelsea Hotel when it proved too inconvenient. And after a few years when an officious staff seemed better trained for military police duty than for accommodating guests, there has been a huge change in tone, with everyone seeming enormously eager to please.
And then there are the films.
If you select your choices exceedingly carefully or are as lucky as a gambler on a run, there are enough entries here to theoretically see 30 good films and no bad ones during the course of the fest. On the other hand, with opposite fortune, you could undoubtedly see 30 bad ones.
It all depends upon what part of the elephant you grab.
