Few spots in the world are as multi-cultural as Canada’s largest city, Toronto. Its diversity is amply reflected in the programming and other aspects of the annual international film festival the city hosts. On the back of steady growth, it has emerged as one of the globe’s most important celebrations of the moving image. Today it ranks among the ‘Big Four’ alongside Cannes, Venice and Berlin.
The 34th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which runs till September 19, is celebrating the city’s 175th anniversary. Megastars and movie mavericks have, as always, descended on Toronto. Drew Barrymore is here with her directorial debut, Whip It . Pugnacious docu-maker Michael Moore has arrived with his latest pot-shot at corporate America, Capitalism, A Love Story . And centenarian Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira, has brought his new film, Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl , into the mix.
Also on the guest list are Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Liam Neeson and Colin Farrell, Sarah Ferguson (the Duchess of York), who has produced the festival closer, The Young Victoria , and Sir Ridley Scott, who will fly in to support his daughter Jordan Scott’s feature film debut, Cracks .
But what is hogging the headlines for the moment is a brand-new sidebar, City to City, devoted to Tel Aviv. It has raised hackles. Canadian filmmaker John Grayson has withdrawn his short, Covered, from the festival, while over 50 actors, filmmakers, writers, academics and activists, including Jane Fonda, Ken Loach, Danny Glover and Naomi Klein, have joined the chorus of protest.
Their contention is that the 10-film Tel Aviv package is a barely disguised Israel-sponsored effort to airbrush the nation’s global image. Activists are upset that TIFF’s organisers are, unconsciously or otherwise, propping up the ‘Brand Israel’ campaign while turning a blind eye to the nation’s treatment of Palestinians. In response, Cameron Bailey, TIFF co-director, has asserted it’s independent of any political considerations and is aimed at providing Torontonians a glimpse of the diversity of the city’s filmmaking traditions. TIFF, he has pointed out, also has several films by Palestinian and other Arab filmmakers.
Even as the storm rages, the show goes on. And that’s TIFF for you. Comparisons might be odious, but back in India, every film festival is inevitably assessed against the Cannes benchmark. So, how does Toronto stack up against Cannes? It is North America’s brightest showcase of world and Canadian cinema. The swish Yorkville neighbourhood that hosts TIFF is a world removed from the French Riveira, but it is no less crucial to the fortunes of Indian filmmakers who are looking for global breakthroughs.
TIFF is big — this year’s edition has well over 300 films from 64 countries, and upwards of 500 invited guests. Last year, TIFF sold 470,000 tickets to the public. But the numbers are only one aspect of what TIFF is really about. Far more critically, the festival serves as a gateway to the vast, lucrative mainstream North American market. Films that are feted in Toronto usually travel well around the US and Canada, as Deepa Mehta’s Fire and Water and Mira Nair’s The Namesake , to name just a few, famously did.
Unlike other major festivals, TIFF does not award jury prizes. But it does have a coveted Audience Choice Award, which was bagged last year by Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire . The India-themed film went on to scoop up dozens of awards, including eight Oscar statuettes. The year before, much the same had happened in the case of Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men — its Oscar buzz began and peaked in Toronto. Needless to say, Toronto is an essential destination for Indian cinema. This year, TIFF has lined up an array of films and themes from the Indian subcontinent.
From mainstream Bollywood to small regional essays, from an Indo-US co-production to two foreign films set in India, the world’s most prolific, if not necessarily best, movie-producing nation is well represented. Significantly, TIFF has expanded its engagement with Mumbai masala.
Says Bailey, who plays a vital role in selecting films from the subcontinent: “The idea is to bring the full diversity of Indian cinema to audiences in Toronto. People here have seen India’s regional cinema, but commercial Hindi films are yet to have the sort of exposure that they deserve. They are an integral part of the Indian cinema landscape.”
Ashutosh Gowariker’s first romantic comedy, What’s Your Raashee ?, which has Priyanka Chopra playing 12 different characters, and debutant director Anurag Singh’s Dil Bole Hadippa , a Yash Raj Films production in which Rani Mukherji, on a comeback trail, masquerades as a Sikh boy, are being premiered here.
This isn’t TIFF’s first brush with Bollywood. In 2006, Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna had screened here in the Mavericks sidebar, with Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in attendance. Last year, the festival played host to Akshay Kumar and his no-holds-barred potboiler, Singh is Kinng . This year, however, TIFF has The Man beyond the Bridge, the debut feature of Konkani filmmaker Laxmikant Shetgaonkar. Screening in the ‘Discovery’ section, which is designed to uncover fresh talent, it is a dark tale of a lonesome forest guard whose intensifying emotional bond with a mentally challenged woman cuts him off even further from his community.
For veteran Bengali filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Toronto is second home. He figures in the festival’s ‘Masters’ sidebar virtually every year. He is here this time around with Janala (The Window). It narrates the story of a young man who finds a small act of generosity — he seeks to replace a crumbling window of his old school with a spanking new one — recoiling on him in more ways than one. TIFF is also hosting a Special Presentation of the Hindi film Road , Movie, written and directed by Dev Benegal. This tale of a young man who abandons his father’s faltering oil business and hits the road with a travelling cinema has been jointly funded by the Indian Film Company (IFC) and Hollywood’s Susan Landau and Ross Katz.
Photographer Dilip Mehta’s first feature, Cooking with Stella , a Canadian entry shot entirely in New Delhi with a largely Indian cast, is scheduled for a screening at the Roy Thomson Hall. Starring Toronto-based actor Don McKellar, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas and Shriya Saran, it is about a Canadian diplomat’s chef-husband who takes cooking lessons from a wily but charming housekeeper. Cooking with Stella has been co-scripted by the director’s sister, filmmaker and TIFF regular, Deepa Mehta.
India is also the focus of two foreign films in the TIFF line-up: The Waiting City from Australia and Google Baby , a 76-minute Israeli documentary. The former, young Sydney-based filmmaker Claire McCarthy’s second feature follows an Australian couple that arrives in Kolkata, India, to collect their adopted baby. Besides Australian stars Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton and Isabel Lucas, the cast of The Waiting City includes Indian American actor Samrat Chakrabarti and New York-based Tilottama Shome.
The internationally famous Indian gynaecologist Dr Nayna Patel is a key character of Zippi Brand Frank’s Google Baby . The film is a study of the globalisation of the surrogacy industry. Genetic material is chosen in Israel, embryos are produced in the US and surrogate mothers are engaged in Dr Patel’s infertility clinic in Anand. The world has shrunk. And that’s right up TIFF’s street.
— saibal.chatterjee@gmail.com
