Each September, over 200,000 moviegoers descend on Toronto theatres to catch a glimpse of the biggest stars and to take in the best of North American and international cinema. Now in its 35th year, the Toronto International Film Festival has been touted as one of the world’s best film festivals, second only to Cannes. Here’s a look back at the history of one of Toronto’s biggest and best claims to fame.
The festival was founded in 1976. The late Dusty Cohl, a lawyer with a love of film, is credited with co-founding the festival. It began as a collection of films gathered from other international film festivals, which inspired its original name: “The Festival of Festivals”. Organizers decided that TIFF would remain a non-competitive festival: prizes would be awarded, but films would not compete directly against each other. By 1980, the festival was so well established that esteemed French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard attended a TIFF event held in his honour.
Many celebrated films have premiered at the festival, including The Big Chill; American Beauty; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Sideways; and Ray. Though it has grown into the second-largest film festival in the world, TIFF continues to make a point of putting Canadian films on the map and includes a program dedicated solely to Canadian talent.
The festival continues to garner praise from critics, actors and directors. In 2007, Time magazine said that the festival had “grown from its place as the most influential fall film festival to the most influential film festival, period.”
This year’s TIFF runs from September 9-19. See www.tiff.net
