Talking TIFF: Fest Co-Director Cameron Bailey On Toronto ‘09

Cameron Bailey at a UniFrance lunch at last year's Toronto International Film Festival with director Gilles Bourdos and Marc Missionnier of Fidelite Films. Photo by Brian Brooks.

“I’m getting slightly more sleep this year, that’s the major difference,” Toronto International Film Festival co-director Cameron Bailey told indieWIRE regarding his sophomore year on the job. “But only a little bit. It’s still a really demanding job. The only difference is I know what’s coming this year, and I know the rhythm of the season a little bit better.”

With the festival’s 34th edition just over two weeks away, we finally have an idea of what’s coming too. Last week, Toronto announced its final program, with 271 features and 64 shorts set to screen over the ten-day event. It’s a characteristically staggering lineup. There’s 100 world premieres, and new works from a considerable who’s who of international filmmakers: the Coen Brothers, Michael Haneke, Steven Soderbergh, Jane Campion, Lars von Trier, Atom Egoyan, Michael Moore…  Because as we well know, Toronto is the unofficial kick off of the North American Fall movie season.  Films come here hoping to get acquired, jump start an awards campaign, or ideally, both (last year, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” marked a fine example of such a double-dip).

The festival’s massive program can prove a bit daunting for first-timers, or even people coming for the tenth time. Because perhaps the most defining quality of the festival is that - despite its reputation as the industry’s awards season start date - it’s driven by a public audience. And with a population 50 times that of Cannes, Toronto has no problem populating the seats the industry alone couldn’t possibly fill.

“We think of ourselves as the leading public film festival in the world,” Bailey said. “So that means that unlike Cannes, or even Sundance to a degree, we’re an industry event that’s driven by a public audience… I think what a lot of the people sometimes misunderstand is they think that they can maybe do it like they do some other festivals and come for three or four days and get the full picture, but there’s so much going on and so much to see that I think that it can sometimes demand a little more time and attention.”

This year, Toronto does have something unfortunate in common with both Cannes and Sundance. “Like everyone, we’ve been affected by the economic downturn,” Bailey said. “We’ve seen a dip in sponsorship like I think a lot of major festivals have. We’ve been lucky that we’ve maintained our arrangements with our major sponsors, and we’ve found some new ones as well. But there was a dip, definitely.”

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A scene from Jason Reitman’s “Up In The Air.” Image courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival. Bailey said the festival hasn’t seen any major drop offs on public side, though, and that the industry side looks pretty good as well. “Most of the major festivals have seen a slight dip in either the number of people attending or the length of their stays,” he said, “but we look like we’re on track to being close to what we had last year.” On the programming side, Bailey said the festival has definitely seen a reflection of the economic downturn in some of the films.  “I think once people start watching films like ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ - the new Michael Moore film, ‘Up In The Air’ - Jason Reitman’s new movie, and ‘The Joneses’... they’ll really see filmmakers responding to this new situation in interesting ways. There are a lot of filmmakers really taking a good, hard look at the place of money in human interaction, and what it does to the human heart and the human soul.” Bailey also noted a few other trends and themes found throughout the festival’s program, including one that seems to have been building upon itself at festivals throughout this past year. “There’s been some really great films about the coming of age of young women,” he said. “It began probably at Sundance with films like ‘An Education’ and ‘Precious’ - two very different approaches to that turf - and then at Cannes in films like ‘Fish Tank.’  With ‘Cracks’ and ‘Tanner Hall’ - two new films that Toronto has - we see [those themes] picked up again.  It’s sometimes with women directors, and sometimes with men, but in every case you’re seeing a kind of new approach to the coming-of-age story. The coming-of-age story of a young man is kind of a staple in the movies, but I think we’re seeing filmmakers pay more attention to how young women come of age and what they’re going through.”   (1 of 2)  Next Page › posted on August 25, 2009 |Share