Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) head Cameron Bailey has been talking to counterparts on the fall festival circuit about Hollywood’s double strike as his team tries to fathom who will be able to promote features at what he is confident will be a robust edition in September.
“None of us wants to get in the way of labour action but we also want to understand what can be done,” Bailey told Screen on Thursday, a day after he sent out a letter saying his team was continuing to plan for the event (September 7-17).
At time of writing Bailey had not spoken to SAG-AFTRA for guidance on whether actors in independent projects in selection will be able to walk the red carpet or talk to press in support of the film.
One consideration is whether talent, even directors (whose guild is not on strike after signing a new three-year deal with the studios and streamers), would feel comfortable promoting their work when so many actors (and writers) on films made by struck companies cannot do so.
Taking it “film by film, person by person”
Bailey said he and his team were talking to companies and individuals “film by film, person by person” – be they independents or studio selections.
“We’re in the middle of this process now and things are promising enough for us to be confident we will have a great presence of people who have made independent films at the festival,” the TIFF CEO said.
TIFF said yesterday that more than 70% of what is understood to be more than 200 features this year are independent. The remainder, like Searchlight Pictures’ previously announced TIFF premiere Next Goal Wins from Taika Waititi, remain harder to gauge.
“The question is, should the strike continue through the fall what does that mean for people presenting their films in Toronto,” he added.
Talks are also ongoing with the festival’s sponsors, who weathered the pandemic and must be weighing up the consequences of the double strike.
“We’re grateful to our corporate partners,” Bailey said. “We got through the pandemic in large part due to their support as well as government support. They’re back in a big way… and we’re in touch with them on a regular basis.”
The festival head added that some sponsors value red carpets more than others and the aim was to find a satisfactory engagement for everyone. Bell is the lead sponsor, Royal Bank of Canada, Visa and Bulgari are major sponsors, and there are dozens of corporate and media partners.
Market buzz
What has been shaping up to be a lively market scene at TIFF will get a boost from an unprecedented development: for the first time the festival will allow international buyers to start screening acquisition titles at TIFF Bell Lightbox on September 6, one day before the festival proper kicks off.
“We’ve seen over the past several years that the business wants to continue, even during the pandemic,” he said. “There’s a major moment in the fall when buyers want to see what’s available. In some years we’ve done over $100m in sales and we want to start that process earlier.
“We’ve got a bumper crop of sales titles, significantly more than last year… people want to fill up their pipelines.”
Screen is aware of several high profile sales titles set to premiere at the festival, some of which will be announced next week, which would cause a stir at any film market on the calendar.
Bailey believes sellers relish the opportunity to showcase at TIFF. “There’s an energy that happens in TIFF because it’s a public festival with a North American audience,” he said. “People know this is a great test audience.
“Beyond that you have international buyers coming from all over the world. It’s a good place to find special work.”
The TIFF head also confirmed that there will be no press conferences this year – a decision he said was taken prior to the strikes. The rationale is press conferences often clash with screening times for journalists. Bailey said efforts would be made to ensure press could talk to whoever was in attendance and was eligible to talk.
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