What the world’s press is saying about Toronto
Visiting media react to film festival and its host city
I am in Toronto for the film festival, having never been to this lovely city before. Perhaps it is an illusion, but some parts of downtown feel the way New York might have done in the 1960s: an old-fashioned friendliness with cosmopolitan charm. And the feelgood factor is promoted by something I have never encountered at any other festival on this scale: volunteers. Outside every venue an army of smiley, orange-T-shirted individuals who do their level best to help you with information and directions. I sometimes find myself prefacing questions with “Sorry to bother you . . .” just for the verbal TLC of them replying: “Oh, please! It’s no bother at all!” When have I ever experienced this level of civic helpfulness? —Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian
For decades the women headlining TIFF films, including Nicole Kidman, seized the chance to play down the glamour and turn up in trousers.
Now, however, all that has changed. If you want to know who is going to set the agenda for the people pages over the coming months, look to the north. —Bronwyn Cosgrave, the New York Times
As has been the case for the past few years, Toronto offered a confirmation of the acclaim audiences had bestowed on movies that had already played at Telluride and Venice. —Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times
Last year a lot of us from the States came to Toronto already edgy about the unknowns of the election. This year, we’ve nearly all spent months living in a constant state of emergency — which may be why more TIFFgoers have seemed eager to blow off steam. —Noel Murray, the Week
I’d remembered last year that Canadian customs is a little more severe than you’d expect: I think I an- swered about five minutes’ worth of questions about anything and everything relating to my TIFF coverage mandate before being released into the wild, while this time it took something like 25 minutes in a form that was both hostile and unpleasant. Averse as I am to using this platform to write the world’s longest one-star Yelp review, this is possibly worth diving into for a second, because it’s not just me: at least two of my colleagues that I spoke to also had 20minute faceoffs with customs before being admitted in, a degree of hardassery that seems pretty baffling. —Vadim Rizov, Filmmaker Magazine
Each night around 11 p.m. at the Toronto International Film Festival, after the Oscar-bait wannabes and acclaimed documentaries have called it a day, 1,200 filmgoers line up outside the Ryerson Theatre for the likes of Yakuza Apocalypse and No One Lives.
These aficionados may shy from the elaborate costumes and other geek-chic signifiers of Fantastic Fest or the various Comic-Cons. But they know their horror, their kung fu and all the other disreputable genres that draw the Toronto festival’s liveliest audiences — certainly the only ones that bring inflatable beach balls to the screenings. —Eric Grode, the New York Times