TIFF PREMIERES

Raised in Toronto, with a love of films, I grew up in awe of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). When the festival launched, it was called the Festival of Festivals. By the time I was a child, it had changed its name (it changed its name in 1995), but, in my earliest memories of the festival, people referred to it as the TIFF Festival. Which, if you broke that down, it would have them saying the Toronto International Film Festival Festival, – while grammatically incorrect, this weird holdover served as an unintended bridge/transition between the two names. Film festivals work very hard to establish brands and recognizability amongst the public and the industry, so a move to change the name would not have been taken lightly, even if it was to the more widely established festival naming convention. While festivals may pride themselves on discovering new talent, they have programs they’ve established and audiences’ expectations within those programs based on the precedence they’ve set.

A festival premiere is a chance for a film to launch itself, whether to acquire distribution or kick off an award season campaign. Films vie to launch at the big (aka the well-known, more established) festivals for this reason. However, the festivals are equally looking for the best of the best films that serve their slate because should a film sell for a ridiculous amount or go on to win numerous Academy Awards, most articles will associate the film with the festival that launched it. It’s good business, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to decide where to launch, especially for fall movies with Telluride, Venice, and TIFF all bumping up against each other. Telluride doesn’t even announce its selection until the opening night of its festival, long after TIFF and Venice have announced theirs, and while some suspected that there was an agreement between TIFF and Telluride, as Telluride would often premiere films that TIFF had already announced as World Premieres, however in 2014 TIFF had a policy to only allow Telluride Premieres appear in the back half of the festival, which was not well received and quickly reversed the following year. A one-year sampling is not enough data to say whether or not it would have been a successful gambit. However, while they did remove the perceived emphasis on Telluride if you look at TIFF, they are still acknowledging the power of the premiere. Their current submission guidelines state:

Upon submission, Films must have a World, International, or North American premiere status. At TIFF’s sole discretion, TIFF reserves the right to accept submissions with only a Canadian premiere status, but the Film’s premiere status will be taken into consideration when final programming decisions are made.

So, they are still asking filmmakers to consider which festival they think will launch them best.

Film festival prognosticators and predictors can look to other factors for things that will help indicate where a film will launch sometimes even before they announce the film. A good place to look is filmmakers or actors getting honoured and if they have a new film coming out. Often the festival will announce the film and their honour at the same time, as was the case with Amy Adams, who was announced to receive the TIFF Tribute Performer Award at the same time Nightbitch, which she stars in, was announced as a World Premiere. However, while Sandra Oh was announced as the Tribute Awards’ Honorary Chair in June, it wasn’t until a month later that the Canadian film Can I Get I Witness, in which she stars, was announced as a World Premiere. However, this is the kind of film festival alchemy that is easy to predict as she has a relationship with the festival and the city, the film itself is Canadian, and with her being the Honorary Chair of Tribute Awards there is already additional press for the film.

Festivals know their audiences and cater to them, especially festivals like TIFF, which prides itself on being a public festival where the audience award is the most coveted prize. It doesn’t mean they don’t want recognition for their work. Having a World Premiere can be as important for the festival as for the films they launch – as is finding the right match. As noted above, most major festivals have categories of premieres below World Premieres, with most larger festivals being willing to consider a film as long as it hasn’t played in that country, so a film doesn’t only get one chance to build festival buzz. It can be argued that films which frequent more than one festival, growing on that initial buzz, tend to thrive. However, a film only gets that one World Premiere, and filmmakers have to know their film and the market to launch because the wrong pairing could result in the film fading away. However, there are always intangibles. The Hurt Locker came into TIFF in 2008 after premiering at Venice and was not selling out theatres. Its reception would best be described as middling. But after opening in theatres in 2009, it went on to get nominated for nine Academy Awards and won six. In the fall of 2008, few at TIFF (and probably Venice) could have seen that coming.

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