Blame it on the Boss.
The Toronto International Film Festival may be known as a mecca for lovers of independent film, or as the annual launching pad for Oscar season – but this year, the soundtrack to TIFF is classic rock radio, or a baby boomer's iPod playlist.
The festival's first five days will feature four high-profile music-related events, with George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling sharing the TIFF spotlight with U2, Neil Young and Pearl Jam.
And if you're looking for reasons why this year's TIFF wants to rock around the clock, a good place to start might be the sellout audiences, long lines and wild enthusiasm that greeted Bruce Springsteen in Toronto '10.
Then, the rock icon showed the documentary "The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town" and sat for a well-received conversation with actor (and diehard Bruce fan) Ed Norton.
"Everybody was excited and happy about what we did with Bruce," TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told TheWrap. "Certainly, it was in our minds afterwards that it'd be great to do something like that again -- but it also showed people in the music business that the festival is a way to make an impression not just in the music world, but in the film world and the world of pop culture."
This year's bookings, he said, were more a case of musicians approaching Toronto than the festival looking for rock 'n' roll.
The TIFF 2011 rock contingent:
>> For the first time, the festival's opening-night gala is a documentary: Davis Guggenheim's "From the Sky Down," which chronicles the making of the U2 album "Achtung Baby." The film will kick off the festival at the huge Roy Thomson Hall on Thursday, September 8, with members of U2 in attendance.
>> The next night, doc legend Albert Maysles will come to Toronto with the first screening of "The Love We Make," his film about Paul McCartney's preparations for a 9/11 tribute concert in New York City. Maysles shot the footage a decade ago, but hasn't shown it until now.
>> On Saturday afternoon, Cameron Crowe will premiere "Pearl Jam Twenty," his documentary about the seminal Seattle band with whom Crowe (right, with Eddie Vedder) has a long-standing relationship. On Sunday and Monday, Pearl Jam will play Toronto's Air Canada Centre as part of the band's first tour in more than a year.
>> And on Monday, Neil Young will come to Toronto – first in Jonathan Demme's "Neil Young Life," the third film Demme has made of Young in concert, and then in an onstage conversation between Young, Demme and TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers.
That listing doesn't even include the three films that bring to seven the number of music-centric movies playing the festival: "Paul Williams Still Alive," Stephen Kessler's look at the veteran singer-songwriter, and Canadian director Bruce McDonald's classic punk-rock documentary "Hard Core Logo" and its sequel, "Hard Core Logo II."
