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Movies & TV

My First TIFF: Leonardo DiCaprio gets me hot about climate change

For many seasoned film critics, the Toronto International Film Festival is the busiest, most stressful time of year. But I’m not a film critic. I’m just a girl who loves movies and the odd star sighting. For me, TIFF is amazing and exciting, but it’s also chaotic, confusing and terribly difficult to go to. In fact, when I moved to Toronto last year around the same time as TIFF 2015, I couldn’t get tickets to any of the films I wanted to see after queuing online for an hour.

But this year, I have connections, namely media accreditation. So I’m putting that accreditation to good use and transporting you to the wacky world of TIFF. I’ve always wanted to know what a press conference with box-office stars is like and how you get into TIFF parties. What’s the deal with Festival Street, and what’s worth going to?

This is My First TIFF diary.


So what’s it like to go to a film premiere presented by a celebrity?

LeoDiCaprio_02.jpg

Michelle da Silva

I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. It was in my Grade 8 English class, when I watched Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. I’m not sure if it was the poetry, blonde bangs or bad-boy attitude, but I became enraptured by Leo after I saw that movie.

By the time Titanic hit theatres and later, The Beach, I carried a keychain with Leo’s face on it everywhere I went and had a three-foot Leo poster hanging by my bedside (and a smaller one in my school locker). My love for Leo was serious. And most of all, it was pure and real.

So when TIFF announced its documentary program a few months ago, I stopped short at the words Before The Flood: Leo’s handsome face, shielded by sunglasses, appeared below them on the press release. Would he come to Toronto for the film? I didn’t want to get my hopes up, and my suspicions were correct when a list of expected Hollywood celebrities attending TIFF was released: No Leo.

I pushed Before The Flood out of my mind. The climate change documentary featuring Leo intrigued me, but it didn’t make my list of must-sees – until TIFF took to Twitter to make a very important announcement on September 8.

Plot twist! Leo was coming. The film’s premiere was September 9 and it was a public screening, so I biked as fast as I could to the TIFF box office and scored a ticket.

The next day, I arrived at the Princess of Wales theatre around 45 minutes early, but the ticket-holder’s line had already wrapped around the block. When I finally made it inside, I ran up to the front of the theatre in hopes of finding a seat, and there was one: front-and-centre in row three. It was meant to be.

The energy inside the packed theatre was closer to that of a pop concert than a documentary film. The crowd – mostly young women like myself – squirmed in their seats with anticipation, eyes darting around the room like rabid squirrels. At one point, the young woman seated next to me started frantically fanning her face with her hands. “I’m so excited,” she exclaimed to her friend beside her. Her friend gave her a tight squeeze.

Before Leo appeared on stage, we were greeted by director Fisher Stevens. Most people know Stevens as one of the producers for The Cove, the controversial 2009 documentary about dolphin hunting in Japan. As a director, he made Another World in 2014, a film about Occupy Wall Street, and before that, he directed Al Pacino and Christopher Walken in crime-thriller Stand Up Guys. Stevens came out on stage first, thanking all the people who helped him make Before The Flood and revealing the film had only been completed a week ago. He also announced that the film would be distributed by National Geographic prior to the U.S. election – where one candidate has actively denied the reality of climate change.

A few minutes passed and then Stevens said the words everyone was waiting for.

“I’d now like to present to the stage, Leonardo DiCaprio!”

The crowd roared and clapped enthusiastically. Actually, that roar was more of a shrill “wooooooh” sound. Turns out, I wasn’t the only super-fan there to see Leo. The man looked perfect – perhaps a little too perfect in a tanned wax statue sort of way – but to me, he looked like the Romeo I had dreamed about all my teenage years.

I can’t entirely remember what Leo talked about. Of course, it was about climate change and the importance of the film, but in those five minutes he delivered a speech on stage, my world went quiet and all I focused on were his cerulean-hued eyes and slightly-chapped lips, likely from lying out too long in the Saint Tropez sun. His hair wasn’t slicked back the way he usually wears it to award shows, but more windswept and soft. He wore a navy suit and a blue shirt with the collar unbuttoned, as if to say, “Hey, I’m just like you.”

I must’ve taken over a dozen photos of him on my phone (he’s posed in the exact same position in every one, his mouth agape in mid-sentence). The woman beside me was in near-tears, the look on her face as if she was witnessing a true miracle.

As Leo ended his speech and waved to the crowd, the shrill “woooooh”ing sound returned louder. He half-smiled and walked off to exuberant applause.

The film ended up evoking just as much of an impassioned response from the audience. In it, Leo took viewers around the world, confronting the devastation of natural landscapes and discussing with world leaders and climate scientists what can be done. We collectively gasped when we saw the shrinking ice in the arctic and shook our heads at the palm oil industry in Indonesia. Perhaps most shameful was an aerial tour of the blackened landscape of Alberta’s tar sands. I wondered what Leo thought of Canada.

Parts of the film featured only Leo’s voice as narration. He described Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden Of Earthly Delights in great detail at the start of the film and that painting ended up playing a central role. But for the most part, Leo appeared – like an artwork himself – on screen. And every time he did, a faint, high-pitched “whoooop” from an audience member shot through the dark theatre. 

Get more TIFF 2016 here and the rest of my blog here.

michelled@nowtoronto.com | @michdas

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