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Movies & TV

The TIFF circus

TIFF is much more than just a film festival. It’s a circus a 24/7 buy-and-sell flea market for industry folks a starwatcher’s Xanadu – and a neverending orgy of free drinks with film people for well over a week.

Take a walk down King Street right now and you’ll bump into a mixed bag of people. You’ll spot the seasoned film buyers and sales agents – they will have a stern look on their faces as they navigate the people who have congregated to check out the street festival, catch a film, or maybe a glimpse of Tom Hardy. Was that Tom Hardy? I think that was Tom Hardy! Oh my god, I just saw Tom Hardy!

You can spot film buyers and sellers easily because they’re smartly dressed: blazer and jeans for the men, and something stylish and functional for the women. European industry folk wear funky scarves (even when it’s warm) and colourful running shoes with a brand you’ve never heard of before. But they will always be talking. Most of the distributors and sales agents travel to festivals, or film markets, several times a year. So they know everyone. The stalwarts will have a hard time walking 20 metres before they walk into someone they know. And oh yes, we must have a coffee. Or Lunch. Or drinks. Email me. Let’s set something up.

In the hotels surrounding the Lightbox, most of the film sales agents and distributors have set up temporary offices within hotel suites, a hastily assembled HQ full of posters and brochures of the films they are pushing. And within those offices are meetings from morning to night. Film sales is a big business—there are many films, and many buyers. Some sales agents will have meetings all day, for most of the start of the festival. (Excluding said coffees and lunches.)

And there are those parties. The smart and seasoned film folk will have a few drinks, say hello, and split. Then the dumb ones (hey!) will drink as many of the free drinks as possible, guzzling it like water in an oasis.  And sorry, party hosts: those marble-sized appetizers look great, but they shall do nothing to stave off a buzz if those servers keep insisting on handing me drinks. To be fair: what else are you going to do at a party where you have basically transplanted pretty much the same people you saw last night (or a few hours earlier) but drink free booze?

At the end of the day, it is a film festival. And watching films is the best part. I watched Trumbo last night – the biopic about Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter who was blacklisted because of his political beliefs, winning an Oscar (eventually) and who is immortalized as someone who realized that moving pictures are a powerful medium to send a message.  

There is a scene in the film where he is so proud to see his name in the credits, happy to see the film that so many people around him had used his script to create a living, breathing story that millions of people will be able to watch for years and years.  That was cool.  Here’s to that. Cheers.

(Burp.)

Matt Hansen is a writer based in Toronto who is bringing his first feature film, Zoom, to TIFF. See his first blog post here. Check out our video from the Trumbo red carpet here and our review of the film here.

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