TIFF 2010 Festival Wrap-Up

Well, another festival done for the year. I was up slightly from last year, with 26 films or discussions, totalling 44 hours, 1 minute.

Things that worked well:

• As always, the volunteers did a great job, and there was an occasion or two I watched them have to put up with crap from festival goers. But in general everyone was appreciative of the effort, as evidenced by the applause during the volunteer trailer, as soon as the cloud of names appeared.
• Ended up using tiffr.com again this year to actually schedule my movies, and it continues to work well.
• I liked the RBC trailers again this year (especially the guys wondering where they were going to get the 50k to save their store), but there were too few of them to last for an 11-day festival.
• No problems with the advance order book this year, and it was good that premium screenings were so-marked in the official film schedule.
• Luckily I made it through the entire festival without someone asking a meandering question in the Q&A (or worse yet, not asking one at all!)
• The TIFF Bell Lightbox is a nice building. Free wi-fi, good food, cheaper concession prices, nice theatres (seating and sound), good location, permanent gift shop. And they'll be showing not only their normal year-round programming, but also the commercial runs of smaller festival-type films like Trigger.

Things that could use improvement:

• The online box office seemed particularly bad this year, and they quickly abandoned the "shopping cart" in favour of the old-style single page for all the movies for purchasing tickets. Part of the problem is everyone has to go through the main, media-rich site for the TIFF organization to get to the film schedule, and then each film page is also filled with media and auto-playing slideshows and videos. Great most of the time, but not when thousands of people are hammering your site. They should probably consider a cloud-based solution (Amazon, Windows Azure) to scale up the website on the first day of general ticket sales. But then who knows if their old MaxWeb ticketing back-end could process orders fast enough?
• There seemed to be an abnormally high number of technical and projection issues this year. For me, Film Socialisme at the Ryerson had no subtitles, and Dhobi Ghat was delayed 3 hours. More embarrassingly still, the gala for Little White Lies had to be moved from Roy Thomson Hall to the Scotiabank because the new digital projector couldn't do the subtitles, and the premiere of Cave of Forgotten Dreams had a projector issue a few minutes before the end, with Werner Herzog in the audience.
• Downsides of the Lightbox: the theatre entrances seem a bit tight compared to the AMC or the Scotiabank, and they've got artifacts on display inside the theatre entrances where you're never going to see it (it's too dark, and you're usually in a rush to get in or out). And what's up with the men's bathroom on the second (or should that be second-and-a-half) floor? Everyone I saw was surprised by the stairwell you had to hike up, and there's only two stalls. Plus, there didn't seem to always be enough room to hold the lines for the theatres inside the building.
• I may complain about the Lightbox, but really, it is nice to have the building complete and available year-round to foster film in the city, and it's great the festival now has a permanent home.
• The general consensus between veteran festival-goers was that the number of screenings available during the early morning during the week were reduced from previous years, making it difficult to make use of some of the packages (like the 50-pack or the daytime pack). Not sure if that was due to the availability of theatres, impact of press/industry screenings, or just a philosophical change.

Miscellaneous notes:

• If you're wondering what song was playing over the TIFF Bell Lightbox trailer before the films, check my post here.
• Was linked to or referenced by The Guardian's film blog and The Globe and Mail's tech blog this year.

Overall, was pretty happy with the films I saw this year. My favourites below, from those films that I saw:

• Favourite Film: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, because it was so unexpected, and was well-paced, well-written, and well-acted.
• Best Canadian film: Tossup for me between Bruce McDonald's Trigger and Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats.
• Best drama: I liked Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat, Trigger, and Heartbeats.
• Best action film: Takeshi Miike's 13 Assassins.
• Funniest film: The Trip
• Best documentary: Tossup between Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie. Tabloid and Inside Job were pretty good, too.
• WTF?! Award: Film Socialisme, and I don't think the subtitles would have actually helped any.
• Screening with the most celebrity wattage: The Way, which had both Martin Sheen (fresh from walking the picket lines outside his hotel) and Emilio Estevez.
• Director I enjoyed seeing the most: Werner Herzog edges out Errol Morris.

I hope to post other reviews and Q&A transcripts in the immediate future (although I say that every year and never get around to it). Hopefully people found this blog useful again this year, and with any luck I will be back again next TIFF with more ticketing tips, reviews, and Q&As. Thanks for reading this year!

Tags: 2010,tiff,wrapup

2009 Festival Wrap-up

I still have 5 more films to post, but in the interim here's my annual end-of-fest wrapup. I was slightly down from last year, with 24 films and discussions totalling 42 hours, 25 minutes. By the end of all that, I was at the point I could have introduced a film and thanked all the sponsors from memory (thanks to our lead sponsor Bell, our major sponsors RBC and BlackBerry, our public supporters the Government of Ontario and Telefilm Canada, and of course we can't forget the Government of Canada's marquee contribution this year).

Things that worked well:

• As always, the volunteers did a great job, and they always steered me to the right line.
• The AMC lines were kind of all over the place, but like I said, I was always directed to the one I needed to be in. Plus, we were inside this year, and I didn't see anyone cut into the line (some of the other venues had issues).
• Got good, prompt feedback from customer service during the advance order procedure this year, which cleared up some of the issues that arose.
• Thought some of the translators did an exceptional job this year. The gentleman doing the translation during the Gigante Q&A, and the woman doing a number of the Japanese translations were both quite good.
• The festival generally kept its promise to ensure all the gala films had regular screenings somewhere else during the festival. There were two exceptions with the two Bollywood films, but the explanation given was they were world premieres, and it is highly unusual for such films to debut outside of India.
• I came to it rather late, but I used tiffr.com to create my schedule this year. It proved exceptionally helpful when scheduling films with a friend. Hope to see it around next year.
• I generally saw less people texting or checking their cells during the films, with the exception of the premiere of Defendor. One of the actors who played a thug in the movie kept checking his damn phone throughout the screening.
• I liked the additional time available to select films during the advance order procedure and having the Labour Day weekend free, but not sure if that was primarily due to when Labour Day fell this year. Be interesting to see what happens in 2010.
• I managed to have only two street dogs (plus one at the Scotiabank) this year!
• Kind of liked the RBC trailers, especially the Chick-Chicken one (you're the hostess!). Also glad to see GM was being fiscally responsible by recycling their trailers, which still get a chuckle. The short films celebrating Toronto's anniversary were kind of interesting - one wag in a screening today described the Toronto Maple Leafs victory parade as the "most depressing film in the festival." Side note: by the end of the festival my friend and I were playing a game trying to guess which RBC, Cadillac, and Toronto short would show up before the film.
• Had a good press year this year, with a quote in the Toronto Star and a mention in Stella Artois NOW Magazine insert. But then, I'm something of a press whore. :-)
• Colin Geddes made a valiant effort to come up with something new for the anti-piracy (or anti-cowboy) warning, but don't think it's quite made it into the mainstream yet.

Things that could use improvement:

• The festival had a screw up in the advance order book this year with listing premium screenings, but they did acknowledge it relatively quickly and attempted to honor any selections of those films. Not sure how that slipped by, but funny thing is, most festival veterans noticed right away.
• I saw people cut into line at the Ryerson and Isabel Bader, and I know other people Twittered or posted similar experiences. They could probably do a better job at policing some of those lines. I did see some people get turned away, but not always.
• One pet peeve that I'm sure many share is people in Q&A's that ask meandering questions or don't ask any question at all. Right behind that is people who insist on talking during the Q&A. I saw someone Twitter that they wish they had a rifle in one particularly bad Q&A to take the questioner out.
• There was the usual problem of the online box office not scaling on the first day of sales, but that's pretty much par for the course.
• Usually everyone is really curious what the song is in the Bell Lightbox trailer after a couple of days (anyone would really, after hearing it repeated over and over again). Since the festival always goes to the trouble of selecting a Canadian artist, might be nice for them to credit them in the trailer as well. In case you're wondering, this year's is Light You Up by Toronto group Pilot Speed (see my post here: http://tifftalk.blogspot.com/2009/09/tiff-theme-pilot-speed-light-you-up.html)
• The festival might want to consider posting on the website a description or pictures of the TIFF merchandise they have, even if they don't accept sales on the website. You'd be surprised by the number of hits that come up with people searching for that.

Of the films I saw this year, there's probably fewer I hated, but less that really stood out. Probably my fault for taking less risks in my schedule this year. Below are my favourites of the 24 films I saw:

Favourite films: Gigante and La Donation, with honorable mention to Mr. Nobody and Air Doll.

Best film with a political bent: Backyard.

Best Canadian film and best drama: La Donation, which won a special jury prize for Canadian film this year.

Best film involving a hitman: La Soga, over Vengeance and Accident (the latter of which my friend and I dubbed The Conversation crossed with Final Destination).

Best film with the least amount of dialogue and a guy walking all over town: Gigante over Police, Adjective.

WTF?! Award: this year goes to Les Herbes folles. My friend heard a rumour that the cat croquette reference in the film is a shout out to a friend of Renais that did a documentary about cats, but I haven't been able to find any confirmation on that yet.

Film that was the most fun: Hipsters.

Best documentary: much to my own surprise, I didn't pick any documentaries this year. I'll have to compensate by going to the next Hot Docs.

Screening with the most celebrity wattage: I actually avoided most films with a celebrity cast this year, so it would probably be a tossup between Perrier's Bounty, which had Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, and Defendor, which had Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, and Elias Koteas. I'm skipping over In Conversation with Michael Caine, but it was quite amusing listening to all his anecdotes.

I hope to finish the five remaining reviews I have (which include three Q&As) sometime within the next few days. Hopefully people found this blog useful again this year, and with any luck I will be back again next TIFF with more ticketing tips, reviews, and Q&As. And if I manage to get around to it this upcoming year, maybe reports from other local festivals as well. Thanks for reading!

Tags: 2009,tiff,wrapup

2008 Festival Wrap-up

Well, another festival done for the year. I was up slightly from last year, with 27 films or discussions, totalling 47 hours, 38 minutes.

Things that worked well:

• Probably don't need to keep mentioning this since for the last few years it's been good, but the festival once again kept the pre-film trailers short and to the point.
• The volunteers did their usual excellent job keeping the festival running.
• The AMC ticket line. This was originally going to go on the list of things that didn't work, but the festival did change things up midstream to address the issue of people cutting in line.
• The festival staff mid-week started specifically telling people not to text message during the screenings. Part of me can't believe they have to even mention this to people, but then again, people still feel the need to talk during movies, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Funny story, I had a friend in one screening who had a couple making out in the seats next to him; what surprised me is that anyone would spend that much on tickets and then not watch the film :-).
• Twittering updates during the fest was new for me this year. For some things I think it made sense (box draw, celeb sightings), not sure yet if it was useful for anything else. Comments either way are welcome.

Things that didn't work well:

• Once again, the online box office can't handle peak loads on the opening day of ticket sales, and doesn't make it easy for users to recover from errors in the middle of their purchases.
• The festival brought the 30-film package back after eliminating it last year to much consternation, but unfortunately, they brought it back with the limitation of only one ticket per screening. I know there are quite a few people out there (myself included) that purchase tickets with friends, and this limitation forces us to resort back to buying multiple 10-packs at a higher cost (hopefully they don't put a restriction on that one either).

One thing that I really didn't like this year is not being able to select films at the Visa Screening Room with any of the festival packages (except for the very specific Visa Screening Room package). This was probably one of the things that ticked me off the most, especially when 8 films (Burn After Reading, Blindness, Rachel Getting Married, The Duchess, The Lucky Ones, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and Stone of Destiny) could not be seen without purchasing a higher-priced gala ticket for Roy Thomson Hall or the Visa Screening Room (i.e. they never appeared in any of the other festival theatres).

The festival's explanation for this (http://tiff08.ca/help/events/default.aspx) is below:

"Visa Screening Room presentations are on par with Galas at Roy Thomson Hall, as this programme of screenings will showcase some of the year’s most significant and noteworthy films, generally World or North American Premieres.
In 2007, TIFF adjusted the ticket price of Visa Screening Room events at the Elgin Theatre to more accurately reflect their value, though in this transition period we still allowed Festival/Daytime/10-Ticket Package holders access to these screenings. As of 2008, Regular Ticket Packages are valid for Regular-priced screenings only.
Premium Tickets (Galas at Roy Thomson Hall and Visa Screening Room presentations at the Elgin Theatre) will go on sale Saturday, August 23 at 10am.
TIFF is also introducing a new screening venue this year, the AMC at Yonge and Dundas, where many of our public screenings will take place. "

I think this explanation is questionable for a number of reasons. One: world/international premieres are not unique to the VSR/RTH films; I saw plenty of such premiers in other theatres. Two: in my past experience, there was nothing about the experience at the Elgin that elevated it above any other screening; big-name stars would still show up to other theatres, generally speaking there were never Q&A's at the VSR, and the theatre is not any better technically than others. Three: despite the introduction of the AMC, there were the aforementioned 8 films that never received a non-VSR/RTH screening.

I've never quibbled with the Roy Thomson Hall gala screenings being more expensive or distinct, but to try to put the Visa Screening Room screenings on the same par is going a bit far. If they are going to continue doing this, the least they can do is *not* make screenings exclusive to those two theatres and let the rest of the festival-going public see them.

The other major problem I had this year was the whole donor privileges issue. New this year, donors of at least $250 got priority in the ticket lottery. Donors of at least $1000 got priority in buying premium tickets. Donors also got separate lineups at Roy Thomson Hall and the Visa Screening Room, and got priority for ticket exchanges on pickup day. While I recognize the need to reward donors for helping to provide the festival with additional funds, I think some of it goes too far, specifically, allowing donors priority in the lottery. I can probably tolerate the rest, but the whole point behind the lottery is to make sure everyone gets a fair shot at the films they want. Sometimes it's worked in my favour, and sometimes it hasn't, but I can't complain because I know everyone is in the same boat. Now, however, people willing to throw in a few hundred dollars more (over and above the hundreds they already spent on packages), get to jump the queue. This is basically going to create a two-tier system where people who can afford to, will get all their films, and everyone else is going to have to take their chances; in Canada, try suggesting a two-tier medicare system and see the outrage that results. I can see this system getting worse as time goes on, and more and more people resorting to buying their way to the front-of-the-line, and I wouldn't blame them at that point. If anything among recent changes the festival has made, this one change probably goes most against the democratic principles the festival has been known for and espoused in the past.

If you feel at all similar, then write to the festival (customerrelations@tiffg.ca or tiffg@tiffg.ca), as Piers Handling claimed in a recent interview to be unaware of any public dissatisfaction with the festival's policies: http://www.torontosun.com/TorontoFilmFestival08/news/2008/09/07/6687466-sun.html

Anyway, enough about what didn't work, as I at least enjoyed the films I watched this year. Generally speaking, most of the films were pretty good, and I didn't feel the need to walk out on anything. Of the 27 films or discussions I attended this year, below are my favourites. Note these are only from the things I actually saw; there were a lot of other really good films at the festival this year judging by some of the conversations I overheard in line or had with others:

Favourite films: $5 a Day, Zack and Miri, and Toronto Stories.

Funniest film: tossup between Detroit Metal City and Zack and Miri.

Best dramatic film: tossup between The Wrestler and The Hurt Locker.

Best documentary: I only saw two this year, but I'd probably have to go with It Might Get Loud.

Best Canadian film: Toronto Stories.

Biggest surprise: Jean-Claude Van Damme's performance in JCVD, with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler not far behind.

"WTF?!" Award: I didn't really see anything this year that was completely incomprehensible, but I'll give this to Takeshi Kitano for Achilles and the Tortoise, if only because I'm still not entirely sure of who or what in the movie is Achilles and who/what is the tortoise.

Screening with the most celebrity wattage: probably a slight edge to It Might Get Loud (Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge, plus Elisabeth Shue in the audience) over The Brothers Bloom (Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, with Ethan Hawke in the audience).

I still have a more reviews and Q&A notes that I hope to post up in the next few days or weeks. Hopefully people found the blog useful this year, and I hope to be back again next year with more ticketing tips, reviews, and Q&A's. Thanks for reading!

Tags: 2008,wrapup

2008 TIFF Awards

While the festival does not have films in a juried competition like Cannes, awards are given out in a few different areas:

Best Canadian Short Film: Chris Chong Chan Fui's Block B. Special citation to Denis Villeneuve's Next Floor.

Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature: Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu's Before Tomorrow. Special citation to Lyne Charlebois' Borderline.

City of Toronto-Citytv Award for Best Canadian Feature: Rodrigue Jean's Lost Song. Special citation to Atom Egoyan's Adoration.

Diesel Discovery Award, voted by the Festival press corps: Steve McQueen's Hunger.

Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI Prize): for films in the Discovery programme, the winner is Derick Martini's Lymelife. For films in the Special Presentations programme, the winner is Steve Jacobs' Disgrace.

Cadillac People's Choice Award, voted by Festival audiences: Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. First runner-up: Kristopher Belman's More Than A Game. Second runner-up: Cyrus Nowrasteh's The Stoning of Soraya M.

Full details can be found in this press release: http://tiff08.ca/press/pressreleases/default.aspx?newsId=596

Tags: 2008,wrapup

2007 Festival Wrap-up

Well, another festival done for the year. I was down a bit from last year; I saw 26 films or discussions, totalling 43 hours, 26 minutes.

Things that worked well:

• The festival trailers were all short and to the point again this year, which was much appreciated, although I can't that Feist tune out of my head that they used for the Bell Lightbox spot (not that that is a bad thing - I'm actually going to miss it the next time I see a movie). The Cadillac People's Choice Awards were funny, although there probably weren't enough of them to not seem repetitious by the end of the 10 days (can anyone say 'Death Shark', 'dance fight', or 'two men, one horse'?).
• The volunteers did a great job yet again, despite at least one industry or press wag not appreciating their efforts: http://www.blogto.com/film/2007/09/tiff_today_september_15_2007/. Believe me, the regular film-going public certainly appreciates the work the volunteers put in every year.
• The VISA Screening Room lounge was nice again this year, especially with the addition of the freshly-made Lindt chocolates.
• I thought the online box office worked slightly better than last year, in that I didn't get any cryptic error messages or timeouts (at least most of the time).

Things that could be improved:

• There were times, especially at the start of the festival, when the main festival website and the box office site were extremely slow to respond.
• There seemed to be a major shipping problem with the out-of-town packages, more so than normal. If they don't already, the festival should get someone from FedEx to help them ensure their shipping goes smoothly, because it sounds like part of the problem this year may have been bad data entry.
• VISA Screening Room tickets went on sale early this year with the Gala tickets. According to the festival, there are supposed to be separate sets of seats for these individual sales vs. those for the advanced ticketing. Nevertheless, I wonder if there was still an impact on the amount of tickets available for pass and ticket book holders compared to previous years.
• While the early VISA Screening Room ticket sales have opened up those films to more people, a lot of the die hard festival goers seem to view this more as a money grab for the festival by letting them charge higher rates for the tickets. I did find out that if you bought a VISA Screening Room pass (but not for individual tickets), you actually got preferred seating in the balcony (except for one night at least, when Bell took up a lot of the seats in the middle of the balcony for their people and clients).
• A lot of regulars expressed disappointment at the elimination of the 30-film ticket book.
• The festival moved some of the Wavelengths programs to the Varsity 7, which only has 138 seats. More than a few people reported not being able to get tickets this year, which was a big disappointment to them.
• Those industry people and others who insist on using their Blackberries during a film. There's one volunteer who is quite aggressive about getting people to turn off their phones and PDAs when she catches them being using during a film; maybe they should do that more.

Other notes:

• Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Funny at first, overdone in the middle, and funny again by the end of the festival. If you don't know what I'm talking about, everyone was making noises like a pirate by the end of the week, every time the warning about not taping the screen came up or the festival personnel mentioned night-vision goggles in the intro. Director Garth Jennings (Son of Rambow) thought that was extremely funny.
• Interestingly, a lot of people mentioned they specifically avoided seeing The Stone Angel because they had to study it in English class for school. I'd have to add myself to that crowd.

Overall, I had a pretty smooth festival experience this year. Of the 26 films or discussions I attended this year, below are my favourites. Note these are only from the things I actually saw; there were a lot of other really good films at the festival this year judging by some of the conversations I had in line with others:

• Favourite film: Jason Reitman's Juno. The writing was great, funny, and witty, and the cast was uniformly good, especially Ellen Page who wowed in a number of festival films this year.
• Funniest film: Tie between Juno and Garth Jenning's Son of Rambow, with Rolf de Heer's Dr. Plonk not far behind. My friend recommends Craig Gillespie's Lars and the Real Girl.
• Best dramatic film: probably a toss-up between Julian Schnabel's Le Scaphandre et le papillon and Ken Loach's It's a Free World.
• Best documentary: Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World. My friend recommends Amir Bar-Lev's My Kid Could Paint That.
• Best Canadian film: Martin Gero's Young People Fucking.
• Best action film: Wilson Yip's Flash Point.
• "WTF?!" Award: Christian Frosch's Silent Resident, although the last half of Takeshi Kitano's Glory to the Filmmaker! isn't far behind (although I really enjoyed the film).
• Green Award for the film that saved the most trees by having the least amount of dialogue: Dans la ville de Sylvia (José Luis Guerín), with honourable mention to Dr. Plonk (Rolf de Heer) and Le Voyage du ballon rouge (Hou Hsiao-hsien).
• Best film involving an older man seducing a much younger woman: Andrew Wagner's Starting Out in the Evening.
• Screening with the most celebrity wattage: probably a slight nod to Juno (Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, and bonus points for Ben Affleck in the audience) over Melisa Wallack and Bernie Goldmann's Bill (Aaron Eckhart, Timothy Olyphant, Kristen Wiig, Elizabeth Banks, and most of all Jessica Alba).
• Films that I want to see when they are released: Shake Hands with the Devil, Eastern Promises, Atonement, and Lars and the Real Girl.

I have a lot more reviews and Q&A notes to post up in the next few days before I close off this year's festival coverage, including: Dr. Plonk, Reclaim Your Brain, Jar City, A Gentle Breeze in the Village, Flash Point, Chacun son cinema, Chrysalis, La Fille coupee en deux, Son of Rambow, and Sukiyaki Western Django. Hopefully people found the blog useful this year, and I hope to be back again next year with more ticketing tips, reviews, and Q&A's. Thanks for reading!

Tags: 2007,wrapup

TIFF Awards

While the festival does not have films in a juried competition like Cannes, awards are given out in a few different areas:

• Best Canadian Short Film: Chris Chong Chan Fui's Pool.
• Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film: Stéphane Lafleur's Continental, un film sans fusil.
• Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film: Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg.
• DIESEL Discovery Award, voted on by the festival press corps: Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán's Cochochi.
• Artistic Innovation Award, for a film in the Visions program: Anahí Berneri's Encarnacion.
• Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI Prize): Rodrigo Plá's La Zona.
• Cadillac People's Choice Award, voted on by festival goers: David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (which is now out in theatres). The first runner-up is Jason Reitman's Juno (an excellent film that I saw this year) and the second runner up is Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's Body of War.

Full details can be found in this press release:

http://www.tiffg.ca/content/mediacentre/viewrelease.asp?recordId=504

Tags: 2007,wrapup