Protesters wave signs denouncing cuts to arts funding as Paul Gross arrives for the gala screening of his film Passchendaele at the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday night. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

Amid the glamour and frenzy of Toronto's just-started film festival, arts supporters and members of the filmmaking community took brief turns in the spotlight to protest recent cuts to arts and cultural programs.

Across from the red carpet at the festival's opening night gala screening of Passchendaele on Thursday night, a small group hoisted signs protesting the Harper government's decision to cancel programs amounting to more than $40 million.

However, their target — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who had been expected to attend the gala — did not make an appearance.

Though it has become somewhat of a custom for a federal minister to attend the Toronto festival's opening gala and deliver a brief speech, there was no such representative at Thursday's screening.

Still, Passchendaele producer Niv Fichman felt the protesters — some with signs that read, "FUND THE ARTS NOT WAR" chose the wrong venue to air their grievances.

"Sometimes it's appropriate and sometimes it's not. We just felt yesterday it was not. [With Passchendaele] we were honouring our troops in World War One and through the ages into Afghanistan. It just wasn't appropriate," Fichman told CBC News on Friday morning.

In the proper setting, he continued, both he and filmmaker Paul Gross "would have been out there happily protesting with them. We believe in what they're doing, but we just wouldn't do that [on the night of the gala]."

The cuts were also on the minds of other filmmakers attending the festival.

"We have, at this festival, a crisis before us, which is a serious erasure of our funding in this country," director Patricia Rozema said at the Canadian Film and Television Production Association's Producers Awards presentation on Thursday afternoon.

She urged her colleagues, if presented with an opportunity to "get in front of a microphone" in the coming days, to speak out against the arts cuts and emphasize the importance of film to Canada's culture.

"We have to say that it is important. Films are the public art form of our era, the popular art form. They are our campfire. They are how we understand each other," she said to applause from the largely industry crowd gathered.

Sandra Cunningham, chair of the CFTPA, also referred to the cuts.

Revealing that the association's board has approved the $10,000 annual producer's prize for another five years, Cunningham pointed out that making the announcement was a pleasure "in a climate of uncertainty for the future, where I suppose the only real certainty is budget cuts to the arts."