TIFF gains cache of 1,460 film prints
The Toronto International Film Festival has acquired a cache of film prints, everything from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window to a 1931 version of Dracula to Canadian classic Whale Music, with an eye to their preservation
The 1,460 prints, in both 16-millimetre and 35-millimetre formats, have been gifted to the festival by NBC Universal, Mongrel Media, eOne/Les Films Séville and Canadian filmmaker Peter Mettler.
TIFF launched a campaign Tuesday called Save This Moment to raise funds for the storage, revision and maintenance of all donated prints. The first $15,000 raised will be matched by an anonymous donor with start-up support from the Ontario Arts Foundation. The campaign (tiff.net/savethismoment) runs till Dec. 31.
Other donated prints include Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (2011), Canadian film Black Robe (1991), and Mettler’s Top of His Head (1989) and Picture of Light (1994).
Mettler has also donated correspondence, research materials, scripts, production documents, promotional materials and news clippings for several of his films.
“This wonderful donation will help us continue protecting and projecting film so current and future generations can enjoy the unique and hypnotic beauty of a film projected on film on the big screen,” TIFF CEO Piers Handling said in a news release.
TIFF is holding a panel Friday at 11 a.m., Reel Heritage: Project and Protect, about film and projector handling. The event is open to the public. Debra Yeo