The Toronto INternational Film Festival launched a Market section for film sales this year. TIFF Has the Toronto International Film Festival lost its standing as a premier showcase and launchpad for cinema?
For one thing, Netflix’s “La Bola Negra” nabbed the People’s Choice Award, marking the first ever streaming title to win the festival’s top prize.
Some exhibitors like AMC (in the past) and Cineplex (present) have refused to release Netflix films due to the distributor’s short or nonexistent theatrical windows, (even if “La Bola Negra” will get a 47-day exclusive run before hitting the platform). The Spanish film might represent Netflix’s longest window ever, but it’s not nearly the same flex as Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which will enjoy 123 days at the multiplex before landing on home entertainment platforms.
The fact that “La Bola Negra,” which follows the overlapping lives of three gay men from the 1930s to 2017, already made its world premiere in Cannes back in May also underscores the idea that TIFF is ceding ground as a first stop for an Oscar hopeful. (Netflix bought the film out of Cannes.)
On the ground in Toronto, other signs abounded that the festival isn’t quite simpatico with cineastes: TIFF permitted phones and texting in some theaters for its market section.
Ahead of a market screening of Ira Sachs’ “The Man I Love,” a notice flashed onscreen that “limited use of devices for email and texting purposes is allowed,” and asked that those iPhone addicts “be courteous to other members of the audience by keeping device usage to a minimum and [keep] the sound off.” (During an AIDS drama!)
A TIFF rep referred us to a TIFF Market rep, who did not respond for a request for comment.
Other industryites were put off by the can’t-miss-it TikTok branding on display at the festival. Films screening in the Special Presentations sidebar received the obligatory “Presented by TikTok” during the introductions, which elicited groans.
The much-ballyhooed inaugural TIFF Market did little to allay fears that the fest is hurting. One director with a hot film for sale described it as “a thousand sellers and zero buyers, and the sellers were all randos.”
But Market head Charles Tremblay dubbed the new venture a success because it attracted “7,000 registered delegates from every corner of the world.” Still, another top agent called it, “a step below” the lowbrow American Film Market in LA, “which is saying a lot.”
Debut movies that did break out at the fest as Oscar contenders included “I Play Rocky.”
