Just as Toronto’s festival programmers are now teasing their first film picks, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey shares with Variety his thinking behind the – oft-rejected – move to give the event an organized market.
As a former artistic director at Toronto and now its CEO, how do you feel about cutting the number of films to be shown at the festival?
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There was a time in the 2010s when our lineup got to be quite big. That was great for an audience festival, where we were giving people lots of choice. But we also want to make sure that every film we select is able to get its moment in the spotlight, to really stand out. So, from about 2017, we’ve trimmed a little bit. This year, we’re still in the 200-feature film range, plus of course the shorts and the TV series that we have. I would say it’s very slight in terms of any differences that anyone would notice.
So, the main thing for this year of course, is the announcement that we’ve got federal investment from the Canadian government to support a market that will launch in 2026. We’re already beginning plans, talking to a lot of people, getting it into people’s calendars for two years from now. We’ve always had a lot of informal sales and industry activity happening at our festival, but now we’re formalizing that.
After such a long time resisting exactly that kind of move, why now?
There’s an opportunity to be able to provide a service to the global industry that wants to meet in North America and to connect with the North American industry. Toronto is a place where we already have so many industry members attending. We’re going to add on to that with project packages, works in progress, those kinds of things, and provide a great meeting place for the industry, as they have at Cannes and in Berlin.
Is a market a financial lifeline for Toronto?
We want to be able to make the most advantage of what Toronto already provides. It’s certainly not a financial necessity. There’s always a risk in starting up a big new venture, but, of course, we have a federal investment. We’ve got all the building blocks, but this is not something that is going be a massive profit spinner from day one. We think it’s a wise investment.
During the pandemic, when business was continuing remotely, people were craving the opportunity to meet. And when they could, they got onto planes to and go and meet and do business in person. Now [in Toronto] we have direct flights with just about every place in the world that people do the business of film.
The fact is that the industry has changed: bridging cinema and series, which [TIFF has] been doing since 2015 through our primetime program; audience behavior and how that’s changing is becoming more and more important. Everyone’s trying to reach an audience that is diverse and young. In Toronto, our audience remains quite influential in terms of identifying [those films] that go on to greater success. Putting all those pieces of the puzzle into one coherent picture [is why we decided to launch] the market.
Do you have a separate market venue?
We’re looking at bringing a new market venue on stream for 2026. One thing that’s important is to keep this a walkable event. So, it’ll be somewhere in the footprint that the festival occupies now.
Wouldn’t it be even smarter to grab the opportunity and get this up and running in 2024?
It’ll take some time to find the right venue. The places that we’re looking at are often booked up years in advance. We need to make sure it has the technical requirements. There’ll be some build-outs required, such as additional screening rooms.
Then we also want to get onto the calendars of the companies and the major organizations that we want in our market. The national motion picture agencies need a little bit of planning time. We want them to be attending our market the way that they do the major European ones. This year, there’ll be a little bit of an increase. And a more significant increase in next year, which is our 50th anniversary year. Then in 2026, you’ll see the full thing.
Could you clarify the amount of funding the market is getting?
We received from the federal government a three-year commitment of C$23 million, that’s roughly $17 million, divided into three years. That will allow us to develop and build and launch the market.
If the rationale for festival-backed markets is so strong, why are so many festival organizations currently in a state of turmoil?
The film festival landscape is a complex one, and each festival has its own unique reality that they’re dealing with. But there’s a few [common] factors.
I think the shift in audience behavior between theatrical and home viewing is part of that. We’re still finding that films want moments to launch. Festivals are good for that, even if the film’s eventual life is going to be largely via streaming platforms. [Films] still want the attention and awareness that you get from a festival. But that’s not true for every festival … and more of the films are held by streaming platforms. Sometimes those platforms don’t necessarily need to take each film to as many festivals as they once did.
Within the theatrical landscape, there aren’t as many arthouse films that are getting a theatrical life. It’s often just the big award winners, the ones that really have something that is unique, or those that are marketed really well by some of the top companies that still do it. [That’s] not like it used to be, when every weekend in the major territories around the world, a number of different artistically ambitious films launched in cinemas. [Now] they’re sometimes going straight to home viewing platforms.
At the same time, there’s more work being produced than ever before. And people are watching more in terms of just the sheer numbers. [But] they’re watching it in different places – sometimes on a laptop or at home, on their TV or on their phone. All of those screen stories need to be developed, produced, financed, sold and distributed. That business continues. Where it happens and how it happens is changing fast.
Have festivals over-expanded and caused their own financial problems?
Many festivals depend on a mix of government funding – the health, interests and strategy of particular government that’s in power at the times – and private funding through corporate sponsors and audiences. But if there are festivals that have seen sources of funding drop significantly, then I think it’s something that we all have to try to do to respond as quickly as we can and adjust. The [festival] landscape is evolving, perhaps faster than it did over the last two or three decades. The last five years have seen remarkable change. And we have to keep up.
Some festivals have tried to maximize their brand and operate year-round. That hasn’t always been a success. How well do you think TIFF has done?
Thankfully it’s not true in Toronto. The Light Box [theater complex] has been remarkably successful coming out of the pandemic. It wasn’t always a sure thing. When we opened, we had art exhibitions of cinema-related shows as a big part of what we did. We found over time that was not going to be sustainable, because they just cost more than they would bring in in terms of revenue. So, we wound that up.
What has worked coming in from the pandemic is really focusing on a younger audience and an audience that is curious about cinema that’s global. We did something that was a game changer for us. We made access free to people under 25 to our cinematheque program and our classics. We found a huge take up of that, thousands of new young people coming in the door. [Now] they’re also buying tickets to some of the new films as well. They’re more engaged. They’re coming more often and they’re making it a social experience as well.
The Light Box is full most days. Capacity utilization of our cinemas and our membership are up since the pandemic. It went down significantly during the pandemic, when our doors were closed, but it’s back past when it was pre pandemic now. The good news is that people do want to get off their sofas, they do want to get off their phones sometimes and do something in person together.
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