So, during this year's Toronto International Film Festival some of the local papers took a good run at the venerable fest. They called it elitist, they called it snobby, they said it had lost touch with its populist roots. I wrote it all off as standard media griping at the time but I'm now in Texas at the third annual
Fantastic Fest and it's got me thinking that they may have had a point.
Despite still being a young pup on the festival scene, FF has already established itself as the largest and most important genre festival in the good ol' U.S. of A and been named by the publisher of Variety as one of the most interesting festivals in the world. Yes, the films are part of that, but there are other reasons, too. TIFF, folk, are you taking notes?
On the film side these guys don't just put trailers online, they
stream entire films. And not crappy user-submitted films, either, they stream actual competition films - both shorts and features. Take that, stodgy ol' TIFF, providers of only a single still from each film and don't you complain about it.
But it's the non-film side where FF proves itself a festival for the people. Last night I shot a crossbow with a director from Japan. We were all taken to the longest continuously operating Texas barbecue pit - same fire for over one hundred years without ever going out - and guests are taken on runs to shop for comics and DVDs and the like. The producer of
South of Heaven bought himself a machete. Two nights ago they opened up one of the theaters and encouraged festival goers to bring in DVDs containing their favorite kill scenes and looped them all into a giant orgy of death. The night before that we staged a drunken on-stage game show and karaoke night. Last night? On stage debates that devolved into a very drunken Tim League - the festival director - donning head gear and boxing gloves for a round of fisticuffs with a visiting UK journalist. Good god, I want to see Piers Handling go a few rounds with Bruce Kirkland but that aint never going to happen ...
So, TIFF, your lesson is this: less cocktail parties and more bloodsport. Get on it.