The Toronto International Film Festival was founded by Dusty Cohl, Bill Marshall and Henk van der Kolk. The inaugural festival was held in 1976 as the Toronto Festival of Festivals. The organizers chose such a name because they collected the best films from other film festivals around the world to screen them in Toronto. The first TIFF featured 127 films from 30 countries and attracted an audience of 35,000.
The festival has been constantly growing and developing since its inception. It attracts over 480,000 festival-goers annually, including more than 5,000 industry professionals. It begins on the Thursday after Labor Day (the first Monday of September) and lasts for 11 days.
Interestingly enough, it took some time before the Toronto International Film Festival managed to gain respect from major Hollywood studios. They were reluctant to submit their films because they felt that Toronto audiences would be too parochial for their projects. But things have changed since then. Today, TIFF is considered to be one of the most influential film festivals. According to Variety magazine, it is second only to the Cannes Film Festival in terms of high-profile films, stars in attendance and market activity.
TIFF is a non-competitive film festival; it lacks a professional jury and doesn’t hand out awards for various categories. It does, however, have the People’s Choice Award presented to the best feature film as voted by the festival audience. The People’s Choice winners at TIFF have often later earned Academy Award nominations for Best Film. The films that have earned both TIFF’s People’s Choice Award and the Oscar include Chariots of Fire, American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, and 12 Years a Slave.
The main venue of the Toronto International Film Festival is TIFF Bell Lightbox a cultural center in downtown Toronto constructed specifically for the festival. Along with the festival, it hosts year-round cultural events including film screenings, workshops, lectures, discussions, industry events, and more. Festival screenings are held at about 30 venues in downtown Toronto.
Photo: intothenoise.org
