Toronto 2005: Day One - Confessions of a Festival Junkie

Day One

There's a feeling I get from time to time as I embark on some movie junket that equates with running off to join the circus. It's not consistent and I believe it has less to do with any particular venue and more with my particular state of mind at a given moment.

I was in that circus frame of mind as I entered the terminal at LAX Wednesday evening to take the red eye to Toronto. It kicked in effortlessly as my ticket was being processed and Atom Egoyan stepped up to the counter beside me. We exchanged hellos and I told him how much I admired his new film Where the Truth Lies that had premiered in Cannes and has received a fair amount of ink recently following the ratings administration decision to rate it NC-17.

Egoyan was in Los Angeles and, more precisely, Encino to appeal the rating. It was the first time he'd gone through the process and he had decidedly mixed feelings about waging the fight and the prospect of winning it. In that regard, the experience was somewhat better than he anticipated. Earlier that day he'd gone before the 10 members of the Classification and Ratings Administration appeal panel and explained what he was attempting to do artistically and why that ought to be accessible to teenagers. His sense was that his words were heard and his confidence increased as he sat with the group as they watched his movie.

In the end the group voted six to four in favor of a reduced R-rating but in appeal the panel has to vote two-thirds to overturn the initial vote. He was one person short of what he needed. The most unsettling aspect of going through the process was discovering that in addition to the 10 voting members, there are two additional observers present. On a rotating basis, CARA invites members of the clergy to sit in. On Wednesday he had an Episcopal minister and a Catholic priest in attendance presumably to provide religious counsel if called upon.

At the gate, I stumbled upon Brian De Palma who was going to the festival to participate in workshops and a dialogue session that, coincidentally, was to be hosted by Egoyan. However, principally he was going to see movies. De Palma and the late Paul Bartell are the only filmmakers I know that regularly attended festivals to see new films, often when they haven't had a movie of their own to tub thump.

DePalma was intrigued by Egoyan's experience, having waged similar battles of his own, and at one point said that one of the greatest days of his life was when he got the board to lower the rating on Scarface. Though his primary residence is New York, he's doing post-production on The Blue Dahlia and prepping a prequel to The Untouchables in Los Angeles. The former film that stars Josh Hartnett and Hilary Swank is a project that went through many hands over a five year period and wound up being financed on a relative shoestring by New Millennium pictures with filming in Bulgaria. He conveyed the sense that it was, at times, the sort of circus one might recall from Nightmare Alley but despite everything else he got it made.

The rapidly expanding talk show roster stepped up with the arrival of New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis. I introduced her to DePalma and she was taken aback when the somewhat physically imposing director rose and gave her a bear hug. It was simply his way of showing appreciation for her defense of his previous movie Femme Fatale. She had to admit that it was likely the warmest introduction she'd ever had to a filmmaker and, were it not for happenstance, might have missed it altogether. She'd actually been scheduled to take an earlier flight and had been at the airport with the intention of boarding the plane when an Air Canada official strongly recommended she go home and return with her passport. There was something in the tone of his words that convinced her to err on the side of caution.

It was still 10 minutes away from boarding but psychologically I was already at the festival that remained five hours and three time zones off in the distance.

This year's event was going to be a little different as well because I'd signed on to be on the jury presenting an award for the best Canadian feature. Steve Gravestock who runs that part of the program had warned me that there would be a hefty compliment of movies to see and a few days earlier I'd been send the lineup which ran to 27 movies. Fortunately I had already seen seven of the films including Egoyan's picture.

I was also pleased to see that two of my fellow jurors were old friends - documentary filmmaker Ron Mann of Comic Book Confidential and Go Further and Kay Armatage, a former Toronto programmer now teaching and writing. Though the official opening was set for 8 p.m. Thursday, Press/Industry screenings would be in full swing and I'd been scheduled for a 4 p.m. jury event. My flight was scheduled to arrive at 6 a.m. and my jury package was to be at the Gloucester Square where I was domiciled.

The flight was on time but the package wasn't at the hotel. So, around 8 a.m. I wandered into the press office to get credentialed and wade through mountains of paper and schedules. Toronto official program booklet is a monster and it's one of the few events that charges press for copies. This year it goes for $34.

The sane part of me kept on saying, "take it easy, take your time and don't immediately go off to a movie." Another voice, however, prevailed and I was in a seat at the Varsity for a 9 a.m. screening. When it let out I bumped into Ron and we went off to an 11:30 projection and you can probably see where this is headed. There were two more films on my instant schedule prior to the opening night event of Deepa Mehta's Water that completed her Indian-set trilogy begun with Fire and Earth.

I had entered the maelstrom and the only sole indication of sanity occurred at the end of the evening when I opted out of the opening party.

by Leonard Klady