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David Weaver TIFF blog

The premiere

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 | 04:13 PM ET

David Weaver is an old pro when it comes to the Toronto International Film Festival. The director behind Moon Palace (2000), Century Hotel (2001) and Siblings (2004) has attended the festival on several occasions, and knows the territory. This year, he came in support of Toronto Stories, a collaborative, four-part study of his native city shot with three other directors: Sudz Sutherland, Aaron Woodley and Sook-Yin Lee. Weaver blogged for CBCNews.ca throughout the festival, reporting on audience reactions, business deals, bizarre celebrity encounters and the general mayhem that is TIFF.

We finally had the premiere of Toronto Stories last night!

It took place in the AMC 24 at the corner of Yonge and Dundas – a corner that’s actually briefly glimpsed in the montage under the opening credits. Sad to say, this is probably the closest the film will ever come to being screened in a multiplex. Such is the fate of Canadian cinema – to be marginalized in its own country.

But it was hard to be cynical or unhappy on a night like this. The film was sold out, the reviews had been (for the most part) very positive, and there was phenomenal excitement surrounding the event. I found myself thinking back to that moment two years or more ago when, after a night of drinking with my fellow filmmaker Aaron Woodley, I looked around at the multitude of faces on the subway and thought, “Somebody should make a film about Toronto as it really is today.”

That’s it. That’s the sum total of inspiration for the movie. Okay, maybe there was a little bit of work after that. But the truth is that the films I’ve made that truly worked all started with the simplest ideas. So when aspiring filmmakers buttonhole me at parties for advice, that’s about the best I have to give them. Keep it simple. Oh, and if you do get to make a film, it’s perfectly acceptable to muscle the crew out of the way when lunch is called. You’ve worked hard. Much harder than those people who’ve been hauling lights and cables all morning.

Two of the other directors, Aaron and Sook-Yin Lee, joined me on stage, along with the film’s incomparable producer, Jennifer Jonas. As we said our thank yous (boring for the audience, but necessary), I decided at the last moment not to chastise the funder who told us they were only interested in the film if the directors were Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema and Bruce Macdonald. If nothing else, I think Toronto Stories has put to bed once and for all the notion that there are only three or four filmmakers worthy of attention in this city.

Instead, I found myself thinking of my father, Bob Weaver. Dad edited many anthologies of Canadian literature, and he died while the film was in post. In a curious way, I think this movie is a continuation of his work, only in a different medium. Maybe that’s vanity, but that’s what I think.

Then I got the heck out of the theatre. Long ago I learned that it’s folly to sit and watch the premiere. You’ve chased your ideas down and wrestled them onto the screen. That’s where they’ll stay, for good or bad, for as long as anybody’s interested in watching. Now you can only hope the audience finds something of worth in whatever inspired you so many years earlier.

So I headed for the bar. After all, it was in a bar that Aaron Woodley and I first dreamed the whole thing up, so it’s only appropriate that it ended in a bar as well. And besides, this Canadian filmmaker gig is no picnic and I needed a drink.

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