The future of the Toronto film festival

Event's new co-director Noah Cowan injects cool energy in world event with refreshing views

When the Toronto International Film Festival announced earlier this year that Noah Cowan would become the company's new co-director, there was a sigh of relief within the Toronto film community. Having worked with the festival, first as an intern and then as a programmer, since 1981, the boyish Cowan was the obvious successor to festival director Piers Handling. But when Cowan left the festival in 2001 to devote more attention to his film distribution company, Cowboy Pictures, there were no worthy contenders left for that position.
While at the festival Cowan co-founded the popular Midnight Madness programme, curated "India Now!" (with David Overbey), "New Beat of Japan" and the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Director's Spotlight. His influence at the festival is reverberating to this day.
On a personal note, this scribe has been working with Cowan, the film writer and friend, since 1987, and has learned to value the man's knowledge and love of the media.
Tandem talked to Noah Cowan about this year's festival and his new role as co-director.

As co-director, how much input does Piers Handling actually have in this festival?
"None at all. There has been a palace coup, we have him locked in the cellar (laughing). We actually work really closely together. As you know we have been friends for over a dozen years and we have always worked really closely, even when I wasn't here we would talk over the phone about various initiatives and what have you. We see eye to eye, aesthetically and in just about everything that happens here. We each have our own soft spots in cinema. He is really an expert and passionate about European masters and the great traditions of European cinema. My tastes are more peripatetic, my programming here has gone from midnight to Asia, to American independence and onwards. So it is a nice balance, a successful marriage of aesthetics, I would say."

There has been speculation that with your appointment the festival is going to go back to its more artsy roots versus the big Hollywood spectacle that it has become.
"I don't think people are going to see much difference, to be honest at the festival. The truth is, 17 independent programmers program the event with their own unique approaches to cinema and complete independence in their selections. So, my impact really only involves my own personal selections plus whatever influence I can cast on my colleagues. I don't think people will see a greatly shifted autorist stamp from the curatorial side. The reason why the festival often changes its character, though, is usually to do with changes in world cinema. It's a large beast that reflects trends and ideas and goings on in cinema that interest people. So when something new and exciting happens in the world, normally one, two or even three programmers might glue onto it and that will create a different flavour to that year's event. That will continue."

When you left the festival to expand your horizons, people were kind of shocked. What made you come back?
"When I was at the festival before, one of my frustrations was that here we were for 10 days creating enormous amount of profile for really interesting films from around the world and then after the festival a lot of these films could never show up again, they appeared at a festival or two, just kind of fell off the radar. So one of the challenges for me personally and professionally was to see how we could make these films work, in terms of traditional distribution. So thus began a really long and fun adventure into the world of distribution and since Cowboy Pictures was formed and had its successes and closed shop, there has been a whole new generation of distributors who have emerged. Young people who are really passionate about art films are trying to find ways in business to make it work. That's happening in Canada, it's happening in the United States and increasingly in Europe. Almost 10 years ago when we started to think about Cowboy there was only one company with a senior executive under 40 working distribution in North America. So that situation has completely shifted now and I have the confidence that the films that we really support and defend here at the festival are going to find their spots in local theatres, on DVD and on television."

As far as the Italian presence at the festival this year, I was a little surprised to see some of the bigger films missing. I know that the festival had a hard time getting the films here because of Venice...
"No, that's really not the case, the truth is, that no matter what we do there will always be the perception that we are not showing a huge number of Italian films. The reason for that is that the Venice Film Festival, one of its chief mandates is to ensure that the range and diversity of Italian production of the year gets shown. Just in the same way that in the Toronto Film Festival, the range and diversity of Canadian programming gets shown and more Canadian films be shown here than at most of the festivals. Therefore, our approach to the Italian Films is to be very judicious in terms of our curation. There is obviously raging chaos in terms with how we get to see them because everything is very last minute, getting ready for Venice, production is in a very complex cycle there."

Plus they close down in August...
"That too. We get to see just about everything that's going to be heading to the Venice Film Festival and we get to see most of the Italian films that have appeared throughout the year. And the number of films and collections of films we end up with at the end of the year, we actually believe are both the most aesthetically interesting films out of Italy but also the films that have the best shot of really impressing our audience, both Italian and non-Italian."

Is there anything that you wanted for Toronto but didn't get?
"I don't think so. I mean everything, all the Italian films that we have right now are the ones we absolutely identified and the ones we thought were the very best from Italy this year."

What happened to Perspective Canada?
"Perspective Canada was 20 years old, it had done Yeomen's work in the promotion of Canadian film. It was invented initially because there was a whole new generation of filmmakers coming out of English Canada, David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, etc., who needed something, some vehicle to help them market themselves as a group and to help us find a way to ensure Canadian film was talked about by the international and local media. Well it worked, that generation of directors are now absolutely, internationally recognized. There are Canadian films by veteran directors in every major festival around the world and there is a large group of filmmakers that no matter how you slice it, stand shoulder to shoulders with their worldwide peers. So why should those people still remain in a programme that was essentially there to elevate and market them? They need to be where they are at Special Presentations, in Contemporary World Cinema, Reel to Reel and Midnight Madness, where they actually do exist in exactly the same world as their international peers. So what we did is go back to what Perspective Canada was and really create a powerful tool to promote our merging Canadian filmmakers, the next generation, the generation that will supplant the Egoyan's one day."

What do you see for the film festival in the future?
"Well, you know the festival is one of the most beloved around the world so I would not be the smartest cat on the street if I did a huge number of changes (laughs). Basically the future is going to be seeing us do the same kind of things like we did for the Canadian Programming this year, figure out what we do right, figuring out what we are not doing as well as what we might and then tinker and re-orient various aspects of the programming to really serve, primarily, our local audiences but also the increasingly large number of international attendees who really rely on us.

No thought of making this a juried festival? No Golden Beaver?
"No, we have no desire to make this a competition festival. We award a lot of prizes for a festival that is not a competition festival but we see no benefit for filmmakers or for the city of Toronto by making this a competition. What's so interesting this year, is that we had over 100 World Premieres given to us. I think a big part of the reason why we are getting this extraordinary number of World Premieres is that, producers and sales agents can come here with their films and they don't have to worry about this stupid competitive stuff, they can basically position their film precisely the way they need to. They can work with us in order to use scheduling and where they are on the programme books and all these other different methods in order to really elevate their films to precisely where they want to. As opposed to being glommed in with a bunch of movies that just happen to be available for a competition that year because of these arcane rules that were developed after World War II. God knows I would love me some Golden Beavers, but I don't think we need one at this festival."
The Toronto International Film Festival takes place in Toronto until September 18. For more information visit www.bell.ca/filmfest

Publication Date: 2004-09-12
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4388