IT’S WORTH THE SHUTTLE BUS TO TIFF’S COOLEST ’NEW’ VENUE
The restored Cinesphere will have free screenings of the IMAX film that started it all
When the Toronto International Film Festival announced in February it was dropping its two most northern venues for its 2017 edition — the Isabel Bader Theatre, and the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema — the organization made it clear they were finalizing their years-in-the-making move to a centralized location: the Entertainment District, with TIFF Bell Lightbox as festival epicentre.
Ontario Place and its landmark screening venue, the Cinesphere, on the other hand, is roughly 3.6 kilometres west of King and John Sts. — not exactly walkable for the average hurried fest-goer.
But TIFF is going the distance this year, adding a Toronto cinema institution that has been closed for revitalization updates since early 2012.
On Sept. 10, director Christopher Nolan will be on hand at the domed waterfront venue to present a free 70mm IMAX screening of his summer hit Dunkirk, and will discuss it afterward in conversation with festival artistic director Cameron Bailey. Nolan has long been one of Hollywood’s biggest proponents of Canada’s 50-year-old IMAX technology.
A week later, on Sept. 17, movie fans get a more historic treat: three free screenings of Graeme Ferguson’s North of Superior.
Thankfully, there will be free shuttle buses to bridge the distance between the Lightbox and the Cinesphere.
“We had always thought of showing it there,” says Jesse Wente, director of TIFF Cinematheque and a key proponent in connecting audiences with film history and culture.
North of Superior, a travelogue commissioned for the opening of Ontario Place in 1971, was the Cinesphere’s inaugural IMAX projection, making it a fitting choice of film for the grand reopening of the world’s first permanent IMAX cinema. “It wasn’t until Cinesphere came back late in the year to say the space would be ready that we decided to go ahead.”
TIFF is optimistic on festivalgoers carving out some time to rediscover Ontario Place, which, in addition to its inaccessibility in recent years, had been overrun with sporadic flooding throughout the summer.
“They will see the original large screen format in all its glory,” says Wente, who appreciates North of Superior as “the first of its kind, and a remarkable display of IMAX technology.”
But North of Superior is far more than Canadian spectacle to the Cinematheque programmers, which is why Wente and his team invited the participation of First Nations leaders and artists to facilitate new and previously unseen ways of watching the classic film.
“The experience will include live performances, entertainment, music and food,” Wente says. “I wanted to reconnect the film to the land, and the people that have kept it for millennia.”
Cinesphere holds about 615 seats, making it one of TIFF’s larger venues. There will be screenings at 2, 3 and 4 p.m. on the day, but those interested may want to snag tickets to the 2 p.m. screening, as Graeme Ferguson, one of the founders and a co-inventor of IMAX, will be in attendance for a discussion. The post- screening celebrations themselves start at 3.
“It will be a full afternoon experience at Cinesphere,” Wente says, a sentence that likely hasn’t been uttered in quite some time.