‘Film submissions at TIFF were higher than pre-covid numbers’
For the second year running, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is taking place under the shadow of Covid-19. About 130 feature films and a couple of dozen short films are on offer at the 46th edition of the festival that runs September 9-18. After an online show last year, audiences are now back — albeit in smaller numbers, mandatorily masked, and fully vaccinated or tested — at TIFF, the world’s largest public film festival. But Indian participation is limited, thanks to Canada’s ban on direct flights from the country. Indira Kannan spoke to CAMERON BAILEY, the artistic director and co-head of TIFF and the festival’s veteran programmer of Indian cinema, about arrangements this year at the film festival widely regarded as a tastemaker for the Oscars.
TIFF is back in a hybrid format this year. Were there any useful lessons you took away from last year’s Covid-hit online festival? People still want to experience movies; they want to discover new films. Many of us have now been in partial lockdown for a year-and-a-half, and it’s hard. We learnt last year how to provide films to people in their homes throughout Canada, and we’re doing that again. But what we also learnt is that there’s nothing that beats the collective, in-person experience of a film in front of a big screen, with immersive sound. I was introducing Dune with Denis Villeneuve, and that experience was just awe-inspiring. It’s a film made for that epic scale and it’s not the same experience at home. The fact that we can do both — provide films at home but also that big experience on the screen — makes us feel that we’re back.
How much of an impact did Covid-19 have on submissions to TIFF this year?
We had over 7,000 films submitted to the festival; that’s actually a little higher than pre-covid numbers. I would say probably most of the films we’re showing this year were made during the pandemic. Filmmakers have found innovative ways to keep shooting safely: they made sure their cast and crew were vaccinated, they were using masks, regular testing, all of those things. Maybe the pandemic halted things briefly, but it has not stopped the film industry.
With TIFF laying out strict rules for viewers, were you concerned that might affect public attendance?
There are some among our usual audience who are just not ready to go back into cinemas and they can take part in the festival from home. If you are ready and crave that experience, then we’re just asking that yes, you provide proof of being fully vaccinated or a recent negative Covid test. And, of course, we’re asking everyone to wear a mask during the screening and they’ve been very cooperative with that. We’ve also added more time for cleaning between screenings and we’re having socially distanced screenings as well, so we’re running at half the capacity that we usually would.
The presence of film stars and their interaction with the public has always been a huge part of tiff. how’ s that working this year?
We’re still having the red carpets where the talent coming in from around the world can meet the media. Usually we would have fan zones where we would have hundreds, maybe thousands, of people greeting stars as they arrived at the theatres. We can’t do that this year. But it’s been great to see stars like Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Stewart, Dionne Warwick, Kenneth Branagh coming in… The audience can see them on stage when they’re presenting their films.
India continues tobe sing led out for a ban on direct flights to canada. i guess that cuts down on talent arrivals from india, and has also meant you haven’ t been able to goto india to scout for films.
It is really a shame. It’s now been over two years since I’ve been in India. Earlier I would go at least once a year, often two to three times. I’ve missed seeing my colleagues and friends in Mumbai and other parts of the country. I’ll be back. We have a smaller list of films this year, but we’re really excited to have a film like Paka premiering here with producer Anurag Kashyap, who was trying to get here and wasn’t able to do so because of the flight ban. We’re hoping it’s lifted as soon as it’s safe to do so, and that we can welcome a major contingent from India again.