Another year, another TIFF. The first movie I ever saw at the Toronto International Festival was Juno in 2007. It was the only film I saw that year, and my friend and I chose it completely on a whim, not knowing anything about it until we got to a wifi hotspot to check it out. The next year, 2008, I saw ten films, including Synecdoche, New York and Slumdog Millionaire. Each year since, I’ve pretty much gone “full TIFF” and seen as many films as I could fit in. This year, 2012, I broke my record from 2009 for the number of films I watched. It was also the most exhausting year of TIFF for me, not only because of the number of films, but because I squeezed that higher number into fewer days.
Seeing so many films in so few days has its advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious are the disadvantages. I’m sure anyone who has seriously done a film festival has been subsequently asked by others, “can you even remember all the films you watch?” Well, yes. Yes, I can. But there is a kernel of truth to the question/accusation. Ask me which films I saw at TIFF’12 and I’m going to start drawing blanks. Remind me of a specific film and it’ll all come back to me, but when I consider them all in a group it’s difficult to separate one from the other. The other major disadvantage is the exhaustion. Watching twenty or thirty or fifty films in a little over a week sometimes sounds to people like an easy vacation. Sit back, in the dark, watch movies. Only, at a festival you aren’t usually there to watch films passively. The mind is constantly working and processing and that’s tiring, especially when hours get thrown out of whack and it becomes so hard to find time for a meal that you sometimes forget to eat at all. Watching a silly movie like Ghost Graduation might be okay when you’re exhausted, but what about when it’s a new Terrence Malick film? Was my reaction to that film too heavily influenced by the fact that I’d rather have been sleeping? It’s hard to say.
Still, the advantages are there. Seeing films with like-minded people is one of the best things about the experience. For the most part, the people who come to a movie at the festival WANT to be watching a movie at the festival. These aren’t the chatters or texters or other sorts of assholes who regular ruin the moviegoing experience. At TIFF, generally, it’s an appreciative audience of fellow film lovers. They’re respectful to the films and to the people around them. There’s also something to be said for being in a cinematic state of mind. Normally, throughout the year, I intersperse movies amongst all sorts of other things. During the festival it’s all movies all the time. My brain is set to movie-mode. That’s what I’m built to think about and process and enjoy. I could never do that year round, but for about eleven days per year it certainly works. And none of that touches on the chance to see films that either may never be released or may be months or years away from coming out. I saw The Loved Ones at Midnight Madness back in 2009, and it only got a release in the US this Summer, and is finally coming out on DVD here this month.
But enough thoughts about film festivals in general; let’s talk TIFF’12!
Some stats:
- I attended 30 ticketed events during TIFF’12 (29 feature films, 1 live reading.)
- I also watched 5 films at pre-TIFF press screenings, but I will only briefly mention them in this article.
- Of the 29 films, 3 were presented on 35mm, 1 on 70mm, 25 on 2K or 4K DCP.
- Only 1 film presentation had a serious projection problem.
- Of the various programmes, I saw 3 Midnight Madness, 5 Vanguard, 4 Masters, 1 Mavericks, 10 Special Presentation, 1 Gala Presentation, 2 Contemporary World Cinema, 2 Discovery, 2 TIFF Docs.
- In 30 shows I was “by myself” for only 3.
- The 29 feature films amount to approximately 3,070 minutes, or 51 hour and 10 minutes.
- Shortest film was Thale, longest film was Cloud Atlas.
- 7 films were under 90 minutes long.
- At 29 films I was forced to endure the godawful L’Oréal ad 30 times (due to a screw-up at Berberian Sound Studio.)
- In 9 days I ate poutine 2 times, street meat 4 times, popcorn 0 times, nachos 1 time, breakfast crêpe 1 time.
- I drank 7 cups of Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks, and 1 from Second Cup (the spice of life, I’m tellin’ you!)
- My cell phone died only 3 times during the fest.
- I wrote 10,047 words worth of TIFF’12 daily recaps for this blog.
But stats aren’t the only thing you’re after, right? I’m sure you all want to know what my favourite and least favourite films of the festival were, along with other notes on great performances and the like. You’re in luck. Just continue on to the next page to read all that fun stuff.
Also, here I’ll be providing an index of the daily recaps I wrote:
Day 1 - Jason Reitman’s Live Read of American Beauty, The End of Time
Day 2 - Rust and Bone, The Gatekeepers, Stories We Tell, Like Someone in Love
Day 3 - Frances Ha, The Master, Something in the Air
Day 5 - At Any Price, EVERYDAY, Berberian Sound Studio
Day 6 - To the Wonder, Sightseers
Day 7 - Great Expectations, Lore, Thale, Motorway
Day 8 - Room 237, A Werewolf Boy, Come Out and Play
Day 9 - Much Ado About Nothing, Blancanieves, Ghost Graduation, Ginger and Rosa, The ABCs of Death
Don’t forget, though, there’s still some more TIFF’12 coverage yet to read.
Next Page: Best and Worst of TIFF’12—>
The Master was the first film I’ve ever seen presented in 70mm (and probably will be my last until I move to a ‘film centric’ town (ala Toronto)) and I think I’d prefer that it was just a 4K DCP. I get the atmospheric 35mm for Motorway and Beberian, but The Master wasn’t going for the atmosphere, it was trying to be brilliantly present… DCP is for that.
70mm is sharper and brighter than a DCP. I sat three rows from the front and if it was DCP I’d have seen pixels. All i saw was sharp and clear picture. Also, it’s the closest you’ll get to seeing it how it was shot, which is nice. The Master would look mighty fine in 4K, though.
I had heard, I think it was on one of The Matinee TIFF podcasts, that the new Bahrani film is really atrocious. That guy has made some really solid movies. I’m curious to see it just to know what the negative fuss is all about.
Great festival coverage, Corey. TIFF is one of those festa that I know I should get to one of these years (it isn’t as though I live very far away) but have simply never gotten around to making the trip in early September, Your blog as well as a couple other ones give me a rather solid indication of high quality the event is, good stuff.
Thanks for reading. It was definitely fun to do and to cover. Then again, from what I hear, the Festival Nouveau Cinema in Montreal is really fucking great and way cheaper.