Two movies premiering tomorrow night will make for one of the Toronto International Film Festival’s flashier affairs: Eden, a survival movie starring Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas; and Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mom who might be turning into a dog.
But for all the spotlight those A-list films will grab, the smaller “market screenings” playing exclusively to “accredited industry buyers” earlier that day represent one of TIFF’s biggest bets. By formalizing years of deals being made on the sidelines in hotels, cocktail bars and ad-hoc screenings, the festival is aiming to build itself into a global hot spot in the business of selling movies. Today, we go behind the scenes of TIFF at a turning point.
The outlook
On our radar and reading list
Wealth One allegations: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has alleged, in documents filed in federal court, that three principal shareholders in Wealth One Bank of Canada were vulnerable to coercion by China’s ruling Communist Party and may have engaged in money laundering as part of Beijing’s foreign-interference operations in this country.
More of this, please: Fixed mortgage rates under 4 per cent are in sight as the Bank of Canada continues to lower the cost of borrowing. The more immediate impact will be felt by borrowers with coming mortgage renewals, according to industry experts.
Prescription pickup: Rexall’s new Canadian owner is planning to boost spending on customer data and systems and regional marketing campaigns as it competes with Shoppers and Jean Coutu.
Red lobster lives: After months of restaurant closings and scrutiny over its decision to offer “endless shrimp,” Red Lobster says it will soon exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Happening today
- Canada and the United States both release employment reports for August at 8:30 a.m. ET
- In the U.S., today’s report is seen as pivotal in determining the size of the rate cut expected at the Federal Reserve’s meeting on Sept. 18.
- New York Fashion Week officially opens. With London, Milan and Paris set to follow this month, a new report warns that New York City is losing its lustre – and the economic spoils of being en vogue.
In focus
TIFF takes on the world
Illustration by Jarred Briggs
TIFF has established itself over the years as a bellwether for movies bound for award-season glory – attracting big premieres, big stars and big excitement. But it’s also a beacon for the people who bankroll those films.
In a conversation over three acts, Globe film editor Barry Hertz told me the strategy is a natural next step in the festival’s evolution from its inception 49 years ago.
Act 1: The setup
Barry: The festival was designed to be a very public-facing thing, and its original name was The Festival of Festivals. So it gathered the best cinema from around the world that played other festivals like Cannes and Berlin and Venice, and, you know, brought them to Toronto audiences like an all-you-can-watch buffet of movies.
But at the same time, people, so many people were coming here, producers, studios, distributors, sales agents, PR reps and artists, talented filmmakers, actors, that it became kind of an unofficial place to do business as well.
And then roughly around the late nineties, early aughts, it became very much a launching pad for what would become the very profitable awards-season machine in which basically, like, the Oscar race gets started in September and goes right until whenever the Oscars are held the following year.
Chris: As a quick aside, how did Hollywood arrive at TIFF being the start of the Oscar season?
Barry: Yeah, it’s kind of been very informal. I would say there are two turning points for that conversation. One is the 1999 premiere of American Beauty, which was brought to the festival with very low hopes and not really on anyone’s radar and kind of blew audiences at TIFF away. And then the same with Slumdog Millionaire in 2008.
Chris: So, those movies found fans at TIFF and eventually several Oscar nominations. Canadians have great taste.
Barry: And the timing helps, too, because it’s right after the blockbuster season of summer and we’re getting into the fall corridor where it’s traditionally more adult-oriented, serious-minded, prestige-level films that are being released.
TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey speaks at a festival event last month.Paige Taylor White/The Canadian Press
Act 2: The drama
Chris: TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey has said there isn’t a major market for buying and selling films attached to a festival like this in North America. If that’s the case, why didn’t they move sooner to fill that gap?
Barry: Well, it’s been something that’s been talked about informally since Piers Handling was CEO until 2018. And, you know, it was just never really considered the right time to do this. And then obviously they weren’t going to do it during the pandemic. They weren’t going to do it last year during the strikes.
Chris: So next year is the year, barring alien invasions. You’ve written about how a $23-million investment over three years from Ottawa designed to support specifically this potential new revenue stream. How quickly does Bailey need to move, and what are those moves?
Hertz: They’ve got to find venues, they’ve got to find staff. They’ve got to sell this market to stakeholders and potential partners around the world. There are the production companies, cultural agencies, film buyers, film sellers, foreign sales agents.
And if they do want to get the number of industry delegates that come here every year to more than double, they’ve got to be proactive about getting it in their calendar two years from now and getting it placed in their travel and entertainment budgets two years from now.
Chris: And then is there a challenge of keeping the deals off the sidelines?
Barry: Yeah. I think the biggest challenge, and you’ll hear this from people already here, is that people are already here and they’re already doing business on the sidelines without having to pay anything. Is somebody who’s already here going to refuse a meeting for somebody who didn’t officially register the badge for this market?
Act 3: The resolution
Chris: OK, so that all sounds like a big challenge. But how much would TIFF’s success mean to Canada’s arts industry if they can pull it off?
Barry: Very much. Partnerships can be made, connections can be made, serendipitous encounters can be made. Co-productions are such an important part of the Canadian entertainment system puzzle that if you can increase that, then this benefits Canada’s cultural sector with all kinds of different tendrils into different territories and partnerships, so that can’t be underestimated.
And then purely on an economic, regional kind of focus, more people filling hotels, more people filling restaurants, more people – all the economic activity that you get with the festival at the best of times.
~Fin~
You can read more from Barry about TIFF’s global ambitions here.
Charted
Could aggressive rate cuts unleash a household savings tsunami? Canadians have been socking away money at a frantic pace to cope with higher interest rates, but with hundreds of billions of dollars sitting on the sidelines and interest rates coming down, Jason Kirby asks in this week’s Decoder: How long can Canadians resist the temptation to spend? Canadian households are saving while U.S. homeowners are spending more, which explains why the U.S. economy is outperforming, he writes.
Morning markets
Global markets fell in nervous trading ahead of key U.S. jobs data for August that could influence the U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate decision on Sept. 18. Wall Street futures and TSX futures pointed lower.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.36 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.26 per cent, Germany’s DAX declined 0.58 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.30 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.72 per cent lower, while trading on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was cancelled due to a typhoon alert.
The Canadian dollar traded at 74.11 U.S. cents.