50 Years of Stories
Celebrating 50 years of Stories. A tribute for the world largest public film festival and a Toronto institution.
To the films, the artists, the audiences, and the stories.
Featuring (In order of Appearance):
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - 1988 People’s Choice, After Life - dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu - World Premiere 1998 Festival, My Winnipeg - dir. Guy Madin - 2007 Official Selection, Boogie Nights - dir. Paul Thomas Anderson - World Premiere 1997 Festival, The Fabelmans - dir. Steven Spielberg - 2022 People’s Choice, Cousin Cousine - dir. Jean-Charles Tacchella - Opening Night Film, 1976 (The Inaugural Festival of Festivals), The Princess Bride - dir. Rob Reiner - 1987 People’s Choice, The Life of Chuck - dir. Mike Flanagan - 2024 People’s Choice, Faces Places - dir. Agnès Varda and JR - 2017 People’s Choice, Girlfriends - dir. Claudia Weill - 1978 People’s Choice (The Inaugural People’s Choice), Roger and Me - dir. Michael Moore - 1989 People’s Choice, Shine - dir. Scott Hicks - 1996 People’s Choice, The Big Chill - dir. Lawrence Kasden - 1983 People’s Choice, The Shawshank Redemption - dir. Frank Darabont - 1994 Official Selection, Moonlight - dir. Barry Jenkins - 2016 Official Selection, 12 Years a Slave - dir. Steve McQueen - 2013 People’s Choice, The Imitation Game - dir. Morten Tyldum - 2014 People’s Choice, Lady Macbeth - dir. William Oldroyd - World Premiere 2016 Festival, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner - dir. Zacharias Kunuk - 2001 Official Selection, Harlan Country U.S.A. - 1976 Official Selection, Chariots of Fire - dir. Hugh Hudson - 1981 People’s Choice, Away from Her - dir. Sarah Polley - World Premiere 2006 Festival, Eve’s Bayou - dir. Kassi Lemons - World Premiere 1997 Festival, Slumdog Millionaire - dir. Danny Boyle - 2008 People’s Choice, The Fall - dir. Tarsem - World Premiere 2006 Festival, American Beauty - dir. Sam Mendes - 1999 Official Selection, Dead Ringers - dir. David Cronenberg - 1988 Official Selection, Amélie - dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet - 2001 People’s Choice, Enemy - dir. Denis Villeneuve - World Premiere 2013 Festival, La La Land - dir. Damien Chazelle - 2016 People’s Choice, Strictly Ballroom - dir. Baz Luhrmann - 1992 People’s Choice, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - dir. Ang Lee - 2000 People’s Choice, The Killer - dir. John Woo - 1989 Official Selection, Water - dir. Deepa Mehta - Word Premiere 2005 Festival, Whale Rider - dir. Niki Caro - 2002 People’s Choice, Roma - dir. Alfonso Cuarón - 2018 Official Selection, Memories of Murder - dir. Bong Joon Ho - 2003 Official Selection, Drugstore Cowboy - dir. Gus Van Sant - 1989 Official Selection, Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance - dir. Alanis Obomsawin - North American Premiere 1993 Festival
This edit started life during an interview with the late Norman Jewison for my short-form documentary about TIFF’s former CEO Piers Handling that played at the opening night of the 2018 edition of the festival. I found the excerpt to be the perfect fit for some sort of TIFF tribute and started playing around with it in the coming months. Every so often I’d revisit it but never quite found the right home for it.
CUT TO: INT. MY HOME OFFICE - I’m cleaning up external hard drives in preparation for a shoot, and stumble across an old transport drive of mine that had this edit just sitting there, waiting to be finished. I booted it up in Final Cut and took a look at the last version of the edit I had made years ago. So much had happened since then, not least of which being that we had lost Mr. Jewison. I knew I had to finally complete it. And the upcoming fiftieth edition of the festival seemed like the perfect reason to finally do so.
But how exactly do you condense 50 years of films into a one minute piece? In short, you can’t. It’s part of why the project previously always ended up stalling every time I attempted to do something with it. This time I gave myself some guardrails; I knew I had to include the first film screened at the inaugural festival (Cousin, Cousine) and I knew I wanted to use a number of People’s Choice winners from the festival’s history. Not only have so many of these films withstood the test of time, but many would go on to become award winners and perennial favourites. And so I started collecting as many as I could. But I still had some gaps to fill.
Thankfully TIFF had just recently announced their TIFF a Story in 50 Films programming which I used to flesh out the edit with other important milestones in the history of the festival.
The end result is a tribute to not just the films themselves, but the filmmakers, the images, and the audiences that chose them. This is what has made TIFF so special for the past 50 years. What started as The Festival of Festivals, bringing the best films from other festivals around the world to audiences in Toronto, has grown into a cultural institution.
Here’s to what’s to come.
A very special thanks to so many of the incredible people I worked with while at TIFF, but especially Piers Handling, Michèle Maheux, Cameron Bailey, Andrew Strapp, Aaron Van Domelen, Tessa Lai, Tim Dunsmore, Lee Cochran, Jason Carlos, Malcolm Gilderdale, Jody Segrue, David Vella, Laura Ryan, Sasha James, and Norm Wilner.