Happy Friday, Degrassi students!

I have made it safe and sound to Toronto, arriving by propeller plane gliding down over shimmering Lake America. Things here are pretty lively, the locals taking to the streets demanding 51st statehood, singing hosannas to their future liberator from the tyranny of Canadian rule. Upon seeing my passport, the Billy Bishop Airport custom agent’s eyes welled up and he thanked me for my citizenship, telling me he hoped he can someday soon call me his countryman. He then hit a big red-white-and-blue button and confetti fell from the ceiling while a brass band struck up a rousing rendition of the “The Star Spangled Banner.” A Porter Airlines desk agent got on the loudspeaker and said, “American coming through! American coming through!,” as all those around me bowed in awe and gratitude as I triumphantly processed out of the terminal. 

In truth, I had a few more minor travel woes (someone took my suitcase from baggage claim by accident; there was no Airbnb key in the lockbox when I went to check in, etc.) and finally I found myself in a condo on the 36th floor of a building, overlooking the city. Quite a different view than Venice, I’d say. 

The mood on King Street, the festival’s main thoroughfare, is jovial, while the scene down on Front Street—where the brand new TIFF Market, a bazaar for film buyers and sellers and distributors and financiers, has opened at the convention center—was more brusque and businesslike. The Market has been established as a sort of autumn counterpart to the massive Cannes Marche, part of TIFF’s attempt to expand, and reaffirm, its global cachet. 

Because, well, that status has been slipping. Competition with other fall festivals and a general downtick in the number of TIFF-sized movies being produced every year has made the festival feel like a bit of an also-ran since the pandemic. Sure they’ve gotten a few notable world premieres—The Fabelmans and Glass Onion debuted back-to-back in 2022—but TIFF has mostly become a waystation for films that premiered elsewhere. 

To hear the festival brass tell it, though, the festival’s stature is as premium-grade as ever. That was the tone at the opening night ceremony, a 20-minute affair ahead of the premiere of Sian “CODA” Heder’s Being Heumann. There was much crowing about the fact that Obsession premiered at the festival last year, which is an actual mark of distinction. But there was less persuasive bragging about Hamnet playing at the festival on the way to Jessie Buckley winning an Oscar, which she had basically already won after the film world-premiered at Telluride.  Then it was mentioned that a few little filmmakers, ya mighta heard of them, named Barry Jenkins and Christopher Nolan screened early-career films at TIFF. Which is true, but Jenkins’s debut film Medicine for Melancholy premiered at SXSW and Nolan’s Following opened at the San Francisco Film Festival (??) before heading to Toronto. So . . . what exactly was TIFF taking credit for there?