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David Weaver TIFF blog

Toronto: One big film partay

Saturday, September 6, 2008 | 01:15 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.

Last night was what used to be called “the Schmooze,” the giant party hosted by Citytv that has since been renamed the Etalk Daily Festival Party, a decidedly more decorous name that I support since I don’t like to admit to public schmoozing under any circumstances.

Each year, this party shuts down Queen Street West in the heart of downtown Toronto for the full red carpet treatment. Since we barely had enough money on Toronto Stories to afford linoleum tiling, let alone red carpet, it’s always a little surprising to find yourself popping up on the glam side of the festival. But I obligingly dusted off my good suit and the whole Toronto Stories crew congregated at a nearby bar and tromped down Queen Street like the guys in Reservoir Dogs.

Like so many things in filmmaking, the surface may be all sparkle and shine, but behind the scenes it’s decidedly more nuts and bolts. As soon as you arrive at the building, you’re hustled into a jammed holding area so that they can roll you out for your on-camera interview at a moment’s notice. You cool your heels and wait.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that a real celebrity will trump your interview time. And that’s exactly what happened last night as P. Diddy showed up late for his performance, and suddenly the fortunes of Canadian film didn’t seem quite so important.

Very glam, indeed.

What was wonderful about the event was having everyone together for the first time since the movie was made. Because the film is an anthology piece comprised of four separate stories with one interconnecting narrative thread, many of the actors hadn’t even met their co-stars. And those who live in L.A. haven’t seen the film yet. That means that when those actors are asked whether they’re excited their film is in the festival, the producers standing behind them are silently praying they won’t say something like, “Yeah, haven’t seen it, just hope it doesn’t stink so bad it ends my career.”

Venturing out did have one unexpected benefit: it reminded me what amazing energy the festival creates on the streets of the city. I don’t think any event short of the Maple Leafs winning the Cup could generate this degree of excitement on the streets of Toronto.

This is where TIFF genuinely differs from other film festivals. Sundance undoubtedly transforms Park City, but it’s a sleepy little town otherwise. For all the years I lived in New York, the film festival there barely seemed to cause a blip on the city’s social calendar. The same with the festivals I’ve visited around the world. My fave was the Mexican City festival where Siblings was the opening film – a fact that no one had bothered to mention to me beforehand. I went straight from an eight-hour flight to a live televised press conference in a language I didn’t speak. (I still wake in the middle of the night screaming from time to time.)

But the fact is, Torontonians really love their movies, and everywhere I look, the city seems to be in a paroxysm of delirious moviegoing. It makes me impatient for the premiere, which is still several days off.

C’mon, let’s screen the movie already!

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