Slimmed down TIFF lineup is a good thing

“We’re stuffing the envelope for the professionals, not for the city. We have the audience. Once the audience tells us that we have too many, we will cut back.”

That was Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, explaining why the event was playing host to a record 264 feature films. The year was 2002. Since then, the numbers have crept steadily higher. Last year, TIFF screened 296 features; yet another record. 2017 might have seen it break 300.

But last week, almost lost in a press release about this year’s crop of programmers, was news that the lineup would be cut by 20 per cent, to about 240 features. That’s a number not seen since the late ’ 90s. Cameron Bailey, artistic director of TIFF, said it would mean a “refreshed, more tightly curated edition.”

It will also mean refreshed, less tightly wound critics and industry professionals, who have long grumbled that numbers were getting out of hand. Last year’s headline in Variety asked it all: “Has the Toronto film festival gotten too big for its own ( or anybody’s) good?” This was clearly Handling’s audience saying they’d had enough.

And it can only be a good thing for a festival that has struggled to distinguish itself in an increasing crowded field of prestige events. TIFF has long prided itself on being an awards launch pad; last year, future Oscar contenders La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival and Manchester by the Sea all screened there.

But t hey also showed ( first!) at the Telluride festival, among fewer than 40 very precisely curated films. It’s easy to pick a winner when you pick everything.

The festival has also dumped two programming streams, which is neither here nor there. The “dark and edgy” films of the Vanguard program can no doubt find a home in the popular and fun Midnight Madness series. And City to City, which last year featured filmmakers from Lagos, could go to the catch- all of Special Presentations.

That’s also where t he meat of the fest is to be found; last year’s 67 features in this category included La La Land, Sing, Elle, Nocturnal Animals, Denial, The Birth of a Nation, Manchester By the Sea, Lion, Paterson, Toni Erdmann, Mean Dreams, Neruda and Christine. You could restrict yourself to this subset and still have a fabulous festival.

Having a fun fest will also be easier now that the farflung Ted Rogers Hot Docs cinema (a great venue for the other 354 days of the year!) and the Isabel Badel theatre have been removed as TIFF venues.

Best of all, TIFF’s 20 per cent line in the sand should prevent the numbers creep from reappearing, at least for a few more years. Numerical predictions have a way of making the prognosticator look silly, but I’m going to say it: 240 films ought to be enough for anybody.