It's always been tough to make movies in Canada. The filmmaker Paul Donovan once said that making a movie in Canada is like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. Enter the film festival, which provided an outlet for Canadian, and international movies for all to see. 

Rewind goes to the movies. For the past week Toronto has been awash in film as that city presents the Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF. There have been movie stars and directors, enthusiastic film goers and volunteers, galas and backyard discussions everywhere you turn.
 
 Many of the films shown at TIFF are homegrown Canadian. That's true for all our film festivals, whether it's the large ones in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver or the smaller ones in towns like Gimli, Fernie or Brantford. But ever since Hollywood became the juggernaut it is, Canadians have struggled to tell our stories. And even though Toronto has long boasted it has the highest per capita movie attendance in North America, making a movie in this country has always been a different story. The filmmaker Paul Donovan once said that making a movie in Canada is like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.

   On this show we talk about the birth of the Toronto International Film Festival. But before that, we go a little further back to look at the history of film making in Canada.

   The year was 1918. The government created the Motion Picture Bureau with a mandate to promote Canadian industry and tourism through film. In 1939, a filmmaker called John Grierson was hired as the director of a newly formed organization that would create propaganda in support of the Second World War. It became known as the National Film Board. By the way, Grierson is said to have coined the term "documentary."

   Our first clip was from 1949. It was the 10th anniversary of the NFB, and announcer Bill Reid, yes the Bill Reid who went on to become world famous as a Haida artist, introduced a critic who looked at the Board's work to date.

   In 1941 the acclaimed filmmaker Norman McLaren had joined the NFB and started a division that produced animated films. McLaren made 59 films over the course of his career, many of which pushed the boundaries of animation. He received more than 200 awards including an Academy Award in 1953 for his film Neighbours.
  
 But making films in Canada was still a struggle. Only the most determined and committed filmmakers could make a go of it. Our next clip was from 1965 and features two Canadian filmmakers, Budge Crawley and Pierre Patry, the first from English Canada, the second from Quebec.  
  
   Budge Crawley's Crawley Films produced a wide variety of films and in 1975, their documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest won an Academy Award. Pierre Patry was a major player during the growth of the film industry in Quebec in the 1960s.

  In 1967, the Canadian Film Development Corporation, later renamed Telefilm Canada, was created to give support to the Canadian film industry. But in spite of the infusion of cash and tax breaks, Canadian filmmakers still had a difficult time getting people to see their movies. That's because American giants like Paramount and Famous Players owned the theatres and could decide which movies to program. There's a historic reason for that. We aired part of a documentary made by Carol Off in 1986.
Enter the film festival.

   By the mid 1970s, both Montreal and Toronto were organizing festivals that would collect the best films from around the world and show them to passionate film goers. And of course they would include a healthy dose of Canadian made movies.

   In October 1976 the first ever Toronto Festival of Festivals was about to get underway. One glitch- the Ontario Censor Board demanded a cut in a feature film called Partners.
The producers of Partners ended up pulling it from the festival rather than screening it with the edits demanded by the Ontario Film Censor Board.

   There weren't any big stars or American blockbuster movies shown at that first festival. In fact, U.S. studios refused to let their films be shown, saying that they considered Canada part of the American domestic market. The snub, followed by a blast of cultural nationalism, helped put the Toronto festival in the headlines.

   It was a rousing success. The following year, in 1977, Hollywood films and stars made their first appearance. People like Henry "the Fonz" Winkler, Peter O'Toole, Liza Minnelli and Donald Sutherland all showed up.   

   But by year three, in 1978, censorship was again an issue. The gala movie was called In Praise of Older Women, and one of its stars, Karen Black, was coming to the premiere. We had two pieces from that year. The first was with Don Harron, who talked with Wayne Clarkson, the director of the festival. After that, Karin Wells, also with Wayne Clarkson.
Film festival organizers did find a way to switch prints and show the uncensored version of In Praise of Older Women at the first, sold out screening. However, for the overflow second screening, the censored version ran.

   The Ontario Film Censorship Board dogged the Festival during its first ten years. Organizers had to edit a number of films every year, including from directors as renowned as Jean-Luc Godard and David Cronenberg. Although the rulings thrust both films and festival into the headlines, they also meant programmers didn't show films they had selected. This was the case with Louis Malle's Pretty Baby in 1978. Finally, in 1987, after the board had morphed into the Film Review Board, the festival got a blanket exemption.

   By 1979 the Montreal and Toronto film festivals displayed a rivalry that had previously only been seen in hockey games. As it Happens with Alan Maitland and Barbara Frum compared the two festivals.

   From the outset, organizers saw TIFF as a vehicle to nurture the production and profile of Canadian films. They programmed both new and classic works by Canadians in top time slots.

  

Our next clip was from 1981 when films from more than 20 countries were slated for the festival. But Canadian flicks got top billing too.  The reporter mentioned that the documentary Not a Love Story caused a stir. It looked at the pornography industry through the eyes of a stripper called Linda Lee Tracey. The Globe and Mail called it an "NFB 'porn film.'" And the Ontario Film Censorship Board would only allow the festival to air it once, saying that the explicit clips of hardcore pornography were in themselves demeaning to women. Not a Love Story became a focus of ongoing debate about pornography by feminist critics.

   In general, if it was a hit at the film festival, it was a hit everywhere. Canadian films like Outrageous in 1977 did well, and in 1979 the film Best Boy went on to win an Oscar.

   And it was true too for foreign films. In 1981 the TIFF People's Choice Award went to Chariots of Fire, which had premiered at the festival. It ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1983, another quirky film called The Big Chill took its lead from Chariots and also premiered in Toronto. It won the People's Choice Award and became a runaway hit with three Oscar nominations. In more recent years, People's Choice winners like Slumdog Millionaire, Precious and The Kings Speech have also won Oscars. Perhaps ironically, TIFF has become an important tool used by Hollywood to market its feature films.

   Toronto's fans are known to be extremely enthusiastic. Many line up for hours at a time, at all hours of the day.

   The Cannes Film Festival might be the world's premiere festival, but it's seen as more of a trade fair, with screenings limited to accredited film industry people and journalists.
By contrast, Toronto's Film Festival screenings are open to everyone, which makes it the largest public film festival in the world.

 In 2006, for the first time, TIFF chose an Indian film for its gala screening. It was called Never Say Goodbye. Enthusiastic fans lined the streets to get a glimpse of Bollywood icons.

   When this show airs, Toronto's International Film Festival was in its final days. In just a few days the stars will go home and the buzz will die down. But one thing's for certain- interest in film, even against all odds Canadian films, will not abate.