During the Toronto Film Festival, Universal Film & Television Journal’s Amir Ganjavie interviewed Tom McSorley who is the executive director of the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa. What follows is that interview.
Amir Ganjavie, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your position in your organization?
Tom McSorley (TM): Certainly. I’m Tom McSorley. I’m the Executive Director of the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa which organizes the Ottawa International Animation Festival every year. This festival is the biggest animation festival in North America, second only to the Annecy in the world. We also organize the International Film Festival of Ottawa which is a live-action festival in March. September and March are two big events.
We also do Canadian programming throughout the year, because we’re the Canadian Film Institute. We’re here to promote Canadian cinema of all kinds and forms from experimental to feature films, documentaries, animation, everything. We show everything.
We’re very much dedicated to the idea that our organization is not a governmental organization. It’s an NGO. It’s a non-governmental organization, cultural organization, registered charity, and all that stuff. It was founded in 1935. It’s eighty-eight years old. We see it as a way to introduce audiences to stuff they’ll never see anywhere else. We function as a portal into, let’s say, the animation of post-war Poland or something or Palestinian cinema or Arab cinema or whatever that never gets distribution.
Our function in the ecosystem of cinema is to show the work that’s not going to be shown. We’re really motivated by that because there’s so many amazing stuffs, as you know, that gets made but never gets bought for distribution for whatever reason. It’s too long, or it’s too experimental.
Our commitment to the art form of cinema is such that basically, we are kind of a permanent festival organizer as organization. We want to show audiences in Ottawa the range of work that’s being made around the world. Go ahead.
(UM): Do you have any kind of definition of a good movie?
(TM): People ask me that all the time like, “How do you judge?” It’s a really interesting, subjective experience. Because, of course, your knowledge of cinema informs your viewing. Let’s say, I’m going to see the Atom Egoyan film, or I know Atom Egoyan’s cinema. I’m already aware of his status as an artist. Whether I like it or not is another story. But when I see stuff, I often think it’s very – as I say – subjective.
I have a couple of questions that come to my mind. One is, why was this film made. Was it made to make money? Or was it made to say something? Or both? Seeing all these films all the time every year, you get to a point where you’re like, “What’s the filmmaker trying to do or say?” Maybe it’s not totally successful, but it’s interesting. Or maybe it’s beautifully made but not interesting at all. Or maybe it’s too commercial.
The other thing with my job is that I’m not programming for a commercial cinema. The stuff that are here in Toronto or even in Cannes, you know it’s destined for commercial movie palaces. That’s not really what we’re interested in. That’s not what we do. But, to me, I guess, fundamentally, the question is that is it an engaging story, whether it’s documentary or fiction or even animation or experimental? Is it activating your mind somehow? Then, of course, the technical accomplishment of filmmaking is part of it. But that doesn’t matter if it’s a low budget or a big budget. It’s a very hard question to answer because of the subjectivity. But also, certain films, I think I can perceive that they’re made for more than just money. They’re made to say something. That’s why they exist.
(UM): Many contemporary films aim to convey a message, seemingly to showcase the virtuousness of the characters and assert that the director is morally upright. What are your thoughts on this trend?
(TM): That is a problem. Ideologically, when a film is too obviously doing that, I think it negatively affects the aesthetic and the art of the film. It’s too preachy. Or it’s trying to be didactic. It’s teaching you a lesson. That’s not interesting.
Also, as you rightly pointed out, I think you’re just talking to people who agree with you. You’re preaching to the choir, as you say. That’s not very interesting either. I like films that make problems out of the world, or illuminate problems in the world, ideologically, politically, sexually, and emotionally.
The problems are legion. There are so many problems in the world. The best films are the ones which shine a light.They’re not trying to solve the problem with just simply saying, “Look at this. Then maybe look at it a different way.” Whether right wing or left wing, it doesn’t matter. It’s more like what is this film trying to illuminate in its way, whether it’s drama or its documentary’s subject or whatever it is.
There’s so much garbage that I see, and you see. You go to a festival. There’s all this stuff. Like, “What the hell is this doing?” It’s just mediocre. It’s just garbage. But this is the industry. It churns out products.
For me, the most exciting part of my job is to wander into a theater not knowing. I do this a lot. I don’t read about the film before I see it. Most people want to know everything before they go in. I don’t. I want to go in almost blind. “Where’s the film from?” Uruguay? “Oh, I’m interested in Uruguay and culture and literature.” But I have no idea who the filmmaker is. Sometimes it’s not very good. But other times, it’s like, “Oh, my God. Who’s this filmmaker?” It’s a revelation because you’re not predisposed.
You’re reading about all of the award winners. You got to see the award-winning films from Cannes and Venice because you have to. But it’s all – you know what I mean – overdetermined for you. I like the surprise of seeing something new.
(UM): Does the institution or organization you are associated with permit the screening of controversial films, including those that may challenge left-leaning values?
(TM): We do. We have basically total control over what we show because we’re not a governmental organization. We are completely independent, non-governmental, et cetera, et cetera.
That’s a really great question because the biases that one has as a programmer also come into play. I am left-of-center in my ideology. But it doesn’t blind me to the fact that amazing work is done from another perspective.
But it’s a really good question. We’ll get back to this in a different way later. But I like the feeling of like, “I’m not comfortable with this film. But I can recognize this film is very good. I’ve got to get out of the way. I’m not the gatekeeper. I’m supposed to be opening the gate not closing it.” That’s how I see it. Sometimes I have to like, “It’s hard.”
The other example that I want to mention is that I see a film that’s very commercial. It’s like, “Oh, my God. It’s so obvious.” But the audience will love it. I don’t like this film at all. But for my festival or our festival, I will show it, because I know it’s well made and all out of this thing. Ideologically, maybe it’s right-of-center. I don’t know. But the point is this is not about me. I don’t want every film to be Tarkovsky. I mean I do, but audiences don’t. They don’t want Angelopoulos all the time or Kiarostami. And I agree.
For me, as a programmer, it’s this weird Zen thing where you have to be a person who’s making the decisions, but you also have to get out of the way. You have to dissolve, and let your own taste set it aside, in order to create a diversity of experiences for your festival audience. That’s really fun.
Because it’s like, “Why don’t I like this film?” Then you start talking to yourself like, “Oh, it’s too sentimental,” or, “It’s sexist,” or, “It’s so right-wing.” But it’s like, “Wow. It’s funny. It’s very funny,” or whatever. But it’s not your taste. Taste is a real mystery to me as to why we like certain things, and we don’t like other things. It’s like how we are with music, “Why don’t I like this band, but I like this band? Why does this singer appeal to me, and this one doesn’t?”
I’m always alert to my own biases. You have to stay alert to your prejudices. That’s the great thing about art. It will illuminate them for you. You’re sitting there going, “Oh, why don’t I like this? Is this really good? Everybody around me is loving it. Why am I so different?”
Get over yourself. I’m not the gatekeeper. I mean of course, I am in a functional sense. Festival organizers, they choose.
(UM): I’ve noticed a growing similarity among many film festivals. Berlin, Cannes, and even the Oscars seem to showcase movies with analogous ideologies, suggesting a prevailing uniformity in the industry. The distinctiveness and diversity once celebrated appear to be diminishing. It’s becoming rare to find a film programmer who declares, “This is my signature; I have this vision, and I will feature and defend it at my festival.”
(TM): Absolutely. That was the old style of festival directors like Gilles Jacob. All of the big sort of cabal of festival directors around the world were like that. It was their baby. They did it. They had a programming team, of course. But they had the ultimate say.
Now, I think you’re right that it’s more democratized. It’s more horizontal than vertical as a mode which has its own problems, too, obviously. But it’s an ongoing thing. I think you’re right in general about the kind of bias of programming and festivals, generally, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it is there. It is something that needs to be discussed. I agree completely with that.
The right-wing, whatever version of it you want to entertain, is marginal in the festival world. There’s no doubt about that. If you come up and you make a fascist movie or something, it’s not going to be programmed. No festival will touch it, I think.
That’s a big, vague generalization. But it is sort of true that the middle of the road or the left-leaning area is where most festivals land. But they show stuff that is affiliated with corporate capitalism like Hollywood. That’s all corporate capital of stuff. Whether it’s about a left-wing or left-leaning subject, it’s still coming from capitalism.
The ideologies are really blurred sometimes in terms of like, “Well, we’re showing this movie by,” name your A-list director, “Ridley Scott,” or something. “Why?” “Well, because he’s a big name. It’s coming from a Hollywood studio. We want to have that at our festival because it’s high profile.”
The media is the other major element in all the festival land. In this festival, particularly Toronto, as you’ve noticed, it’s really good. They need their A-list Hollywood stars to get media. That, to me, you’re buying into a completely corporate ideology. You can show all of the socialists, left-wing kind of stuff. But you’re still playing the game of the right-wing ideology, economically speaking; let’s put it that way.
I think that’s interesting to me. It’s like two-faced, the Janus face. There’s facing this way and facing that way. It’s more like the Hydra head. You cut 1 head off and 2 grow. Every festival has to figure out where it is. That is very much about who are the people that are making the programming decisions, of course. Then you have a Board of Directors.
In Toronto, which has organized itself as a corporation, corporations are very different than my organization. It’s still a non-profit, all that stuff, but it’s a corporation. It’s hierarchical. It’s vertical. I’ve been interested to see how Toronto has evolved from when it was…
(UM): A baby.
(TM): … twenty-five years ago as a “Festival of Festivals” which is basically a big film club. Now, it’s this vertically integrated system that has tied itself completely to Hollywood.
Because they always say here in Toronto, and they boast about it like, “We are where the Oscar race begins.” They brag about that. It’s a point of honor for Toronto which I find, as a Canadian, really colonial. It’s like you’re kissing the ass of the United States because it makes you money.
(UM): When conversing with Canadian filmmakers, I often sense a feeling of underappreciation from Canadian festivals towards their work, unless they gain recognition at major European festivals. For instance, I had a conversation with Denis Côté, who shared that before his recognition at Locarno, he went unnoticed, but post-festival, interest in his work spiked. This leads me to wonder if the Canadian Film Festival is playing it too safe, perhaps not taking enough risks to adequately promote Canadian filmmakers.
(TM): I think that’s generally true. The thing about Canada, too, is that you have to remember the history of Canada as a colony. It is very much used to following the power. Canada was a colony of Great Britain. After World War II, it became a colony of the United States.
The colonial imagination is much different than the imagination of a nation-state that is rooted deeply, and entrenched in itself. It looks at the world differently. It looks at the world from a place that is not seen from within as legitimate. We really have no legitimacy, because we’re a colony.
Where’s the power? Where’s the legitimacy? Oh, it used to be in London and Paris. Now, it’s in Washington. Canada has sort of followed. This trickles down to the mentality of the Canadian festival in selecting Canadian cinema. It’s like it has to be given a stamp of approval by Berlin or by Locarno, or somewhere else. Then it’s okay. Then it must be okay.
There is a lack of vision in Canada and the courage to say, “No. I don’t care if it didn’t get picked in Cannes or wherever. We’re showing it here,”Whoever or whatever festival it has to be.
Denis Côté is a perfect example of that because he’s seen it in his career where nobody wants to play his films. But on the other hand, sometimes maybe your film isn’t very good. You think your film is great because you made it. But maybe the range of stuff that’s being submitted, let’s say, to this festival, is not strong enough that year. He’s in here this year. He wasn’t here last year. He had a film last year and 2 years ago which didn’t get in here. I think he’s generally right that Canadians particularly are still trapped in a colonial mentality.
(UM): Mentality.
(TM): That affects all kinds of things, including the courage- no, not even courage. Of course, we’re going to show a Canadian film and celebrate it. It takes a confident culture to make such a statement.
Canada is still very immature, in my opinion, in that way. I think that’s just part of the vestiges of the colonial history we have as a country and attitude. It’s a lack of confidence. You’re always looking to the outside. That’s where it all really means something.
The strike is very interesting this year. The fact that none of those stars are here, sort of changed the whole orientation of the festivals. We can’t show off Brad Pitt. Maybe that’s a good thing. You’ve become a little bit too colonial in your relationship with Hollywood. But that’s what brings in money. They get American media here. It’s the same old story.
But I think that what Denis Côté said is generally true. But I attribute it to this other thing, the colonial mentality.
(UM): I’ve heard from numerous programmers that their positions are often temporary, lasting only a few months, which necessitates seeking employment elsewhere for the rest of the year. While this arrangement offers the flexibility to work for different festivals and explore various opportunities, it also presents challenges, especially concerning financial stability and bill payments. I’m curious, how does this situation apply to your circumstances?
(TM): Our organization is pretty stable in that sense where I’m the head programmer, and I have several people and staff that program as well. We are full-time employees. Because we’re not very big, we’re able to maintain the same staff.
Toronto is so large. Some festivals like Berlin and Cannes, they’re too big. They don’t employ people full-time, as you know. We are a little different in the sense that we’re small. We program through the year, not just for 1 ten-day period. We maintain a staff which gives, I suppose, continuity even to the programming philosophy.
Audiences are familiar with me in Ottawa. That’s not necessarily always a good thing either. You need to change it up if you need new voices and all that. I’m aware of that. My colleagues, they’re very much involved, too. We talk about what we’re going to show.
The kind of tribe of film programmers with a short-term contract, basically, are like these international gypsies who kind of move around from Locarno to Rotterdam to wherever. I don’t know how they do it, to be honest. It’s a very insecure work, because of your particular taste, your contacts can go out of fashion. If a festival director changes in Berlin, which has just happened…Suddenly, you’re not wanted anymore. “I’m going to bring in some other people.” Then where do you go? Well, where else is there to go? Maybe you can go to Venice or Locarno. Maybe you can go to Abu Dhabi or something. I don’t know how that works.
The other thing is that it becomes very incestuous. All these programmers know each other. Everybody is sort of in the same gang over the year. Whether you go to Gothenburg or Rotterdam or Berlin, it’s sort of the same people. That’s what I noticed during my years on the road. It was like, “He’s programming for Berlin and Toronto? Okay.”
It’s not surprising there’s a lot of homogeneity among the selections. That’s what I mean.
(UM): I understand. That’s a good point.
(TM): They will be bringing a film. If you’re looking for Berlin, you might also wear a Toronto hat and that film will come to Toronto. That’s just how it seems to have worked in this game over the years observing it.
Because I used to work for the Montreal World Film Festival. A lot of my choices never made it to Montreal because of other factors like sales agents and festival politics. Nobody wanted to go to Montreal, because it’s before Toronto. Toronto would say to the producer, “Well, if you go to Montreal, we’re not accepting your film here.” The power games are played. It has nothing to do with the content of the film. It’s just about power. That’s a whole other level of the festival world beyond the subjectivity that we spoke of earlier of selection and taste and how certain films seem to play only at festivals. There are some films that play, and then they just disappear. The festival world loves the film and then just never gets released in distribution. That’s a whole other question.
But I think that part of it is what you were describing that these short-contract employees at various festivals have to keep their lives going. They work for more than one. That inevitably will mean that the films that they’re choosing from whatever festival here, they’ll probably recommend them for a festival here. It makes perfect sense. It’s every year, of course.It’s always in this particular configuration of the festival, one way or the other.
(UM): What is the nature relationship between your organization and the venue?
(TM): In Ottawa, we do not own our own venue. I don’t know if you’ve talked to Sean Inouye from The Cinematheque in Vancouver. They own their own theater. We don’t. We rent. Our festival is in 3 cinemas all of which we rent. We have to book the dates a year in advance and pay rental fees and all that stuff. It’s a challenge.
It was funny because when COVID was happening, we just migrated online. We owned the platform. We rented the platform. But we control them. It was cheap compared to renting a theater.
That’s a real challenge now in post-COVID times to afford the spaces. Because, one, they’re expensive and, two, you don’t really have total control of the programming. In the case of one of our venues, it’s a repertory cinema in Ottawa. It shows stuff all the time. When we book our festival in there, we don’t get the whole day. We’ll get a slot here and a slot there. It’s not even like you’re at the festival at the cinema. You’re 1 program out of 3 that day. It’s just a different model.
People go to the festival screening at that venue. But it’s not like you have control. You’re just a renter. That’s a challenge because, at some stage, the date’s not available. Or something happens that you have no control over.
That, for us, has always been frustrating not to own our own screen, like Vancouver does, and not to have the complete control of it. Your cost is already absorbed because it’s part of your organization. Renting is common like most festivals. TIFF is different because they own the Lightbox. But they’re paying rent at the Scotiabank Cinemas.
(UM): But I heard it’s going to be torn down.
(TM): Yes. It’s going to be cut. I don’t know what they’re going to do. Plus, you can’t control the cost. They can say, “Well, they used to cost $600 for 1 screening. Now it’s $1,200.”
(UM): That’s huge…
(TM): That’s a big problem. In our case, in Ottawa, we’ve actually had to try to negotiate with the venue owner. I know there were 2 years of COVID. But you can’t make up for that time with charging us this much money, because we can’t afford to show. We literally cannot afford to put the film on there if you’re charging us this much money to use the theater, because we’re going to lose hundreds of dollars each time, we show a movie. We can’t. We can’t afford it. It just makes no sense.
We’re a non-profit, non-governmental organization, a very low budget. We fly really low to the ground. That kind of stuff is meaningful. Then it becomes like, “Oh, god. If that’s going to cost us that much, where are we going to show our stuff? Where can we hold the festival?” All the groups in my city in Ottawa are struggling with institutions that have these venues and even the private businesses that have them and this crazy, increasing rental fees, because it is unsustainable.
Thankfully, one of our venues is in Ottawa Art Gallery. We have said to them, “Look. We’re in the same building. We’re supposed to be partners in this enterprise. Because we bring people into the building. They go to your gallery. Then they come see this cinema. They come to the film.” We get a preferred rate on the rental.
But since COVID has ended, they’ve bumped up that level even for us. We’re like, “Well, here’s the economics of it. We have sixty people coming to see a film from Mongolia, paying $10 per person or whatever, $600. You’re charging us $1,400 for 1 screening. We can’t do it.” At least, they’re listening.
The private sector stuff, the 2 cinemas we use, they’re not part of the chain. They’re independent cinemas. They also are sensitive to that. They will listen. We can work out deals. But the economics, like you’re talking about the programmers and their jobs, is the same thing. This is a really big part of the whole enterprise of putting a film festival together, this actual cost of turning off the lights in the room and turning a projector up.
(UM): How would you describe the relationship between your festival and prominent stars in the industry? Is their involvement significant to your festival?
(TM): No. It’s not that important. We love to have artists there, mostly directors. Most of our guests are Canadian because we can afford to bring them. They’re not charging outrageous fees the way Hollywood people do. We have no relationship with Hollywood in that way.
We do a European Union Film Festival every year. Ottawa is the capital city. We have good relationships with the embassies of countries. We’ll say, “We’re showing you this film from Italy: Can you bring in the director?” They’ll look in their cultural budget, and they’ll say, “Yes. We can bring that person.”
Occasionally, we get international guests who are being paid by the embassies which is great. Audiences love encountering the artists. I do, too. It’s always better to have the filmmaker there or the producer, whatever, and actors, too.
Denis Côté, for example, came to our festival 2 years ago and showed us one of his films. He was there. We did a Q&A with him and a long conversation with people after the screening. Yes. Whenever we can, we want to have a filmmaker.
Our primary concern – again, we’re a young festival – is to have the Canadian films represented by Canadians, by the filmmakers. Internationally, we can work that out where we can. But having somebody affiliated with the production is very important. Also, it sells tickets. It’s an economic thing, too. People will want to go if they, “Oh, the director’s going to be there.” Maybe they weren’t going to go. Now, they’re like, “Oh, the filmmaker is going to be in attendance. Let’s go. We can get to meet the filmmaker.”
That’s always just another benefit of having somebody there. It’s always great because we’re an organization dedicated to education. Whenever you can create an encounter between an audience and a creator, a filmmaker, you do it, because that’s part of it.
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