Is it too early to be fatigued and have sore feet?
The 35th Toronto Film Festival kicked off officially on Thursday night, but industry festivalgoers were on the streets hours earlier for the first day of “Press & Industry” screenings, which began at 9 a.m. and continued until TIFF officially launched 11 hours later with “Score: A Hockey Musical,” the cute little Canadian film that seems vaguely embarrassing (or at least irrelevant) to most TIFFers.
A few notes from theWrap’s first day on the streets and in the screening rooms:
Toronto is all about indie films, and awards contenders, and foreign art movies, right? So it makes perfect sense that the Scotiabank Theatre, the main location for P&I screenings, is … the loudest, busiest, noisiest multiplex imaginable, with not a trace of arthouse blood coursing through its loudly-pumping veins.
Scotiabank (left) has flashing lights, loud décor and enough arcade games to fill a carnival midway; it’s the kind of place that was made to show “The Expendables” and “Transformers” and “Iron Man,” not “The Strange Case of Anjelica” and “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.”
But it’s got big theaters, and the bedbugs are apparently gone or were never there to begin with, and it’s just up the street from festival headquarters – so for the next 10 days, a bit of class will try to survive amidst all that glitz.
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Speaking of festival headquarters, the new TIFF Bell Lightbox, 10 years in the making, is sleek and modern and beautiful.
It’s also not open yet. Not quite.
The building, which houses offices, restaurants, exhibition space and eight state-of-the-art theaters, isn’t scheduled to open until Sunday, four days into TIFF’s 11-day run.
The building was originally supposed to be completed years ago, but delays and cost overruns were rampant. Workers have continued to toil in the Lightbox, with unfinished business causing a recent orientation session for TIFF volunteers to be moved to the Roy Thomson Hall.
But it needs to be ready to go on Sunday, because TIFF has a day-long block party planned.
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Each screening at Toronto is preceded by several promos and commercials for fest sponsors (Bell, Cadillac) and for the festival itself. Drawing the most attention on the first day were the Cadillac ads, which start with a brief glimpse of a famous movie scene, then the line “some things you see once and remember forever” and a shot of a Cadillac.
Of the two versions of the ad I saw on Thursday, one showcased a glimpse of the Terminator’s head from “T2.” That one drew little response from the crowd – a marked change from the first ad I saw, which drew widespread laughter for the scene it briefly showcased:
Sharon Stone crossing her legs from “Basic Instinct.”
