[xtypo_dropcap]M[/xtypo_dropcap]y friend didn’t go to the Toronto International Film Festival because she said wasting her money on Hollywood remakes of old classics wasn’t her idea of a good time.
This year was my first time attending the world’s second largest film festival and after taking in films from around the world, I tried to tell her she had it wrong. It’s easy to take pot shots at vacuous Hollywood movies that are more about explosions and marketing than carefully-crafted stories. But for all its glamour and celebrity attendance, TIFF is not a pre-sell of Hollywood movies but more a reminder for film goers about the power of the silver screen.
[etssp 113]
“The First Grader” by director Justin Chadwick is a case in point.
“The First Grader” is based on the real-life story of an octogenarian Kenyan who attended first grade with local children. The movie vividly portrays the difficult life of 84-year old Maruge, a veteran tribe member who fought to free his country from British colonization but ended up being thrown into a prison camp to suffer many forms of torture.
Without buttering up the film with stunts or beautiful urban scenes, the raw Kenyan suburbs and the subtle acting of the Kenyan locals communicates reality and emotion to the audience
The movie “Blessed Events” from Germany had a similar tie to human sentimentality. With little dialogue, the producer captured the attention of the audience with every word spoken by the cast. The director focused the audience’s attention on the emotions that were not portrayed as prominently but were understood from the careful choice of vocabulary and actions.
Both movies had similar effects on the sobbing audience that connected to stories that felt real and honest. With around 300 movies from around the world that showcased at TIFF this year, there is little doubt my friend would have been able to find an in-depth film that she could relate to.
“We love to go to the cinema to experience emotion together as a group, sit in the dark and watch an emotional story, and those can be true stories… People want to laugh, cry, and rejoice life together,” said Chadwick.
It wasn’t surprising that the powerful performances in “The First Grader” left a good portion of the audience in tears.
So while my friend may be right that Hollywood seems inclined to recycle old classics, like the recent comedy “Dinner for Schmucks” that was based on the 1998 French comedy “Le Dîner de Cons,” TIFF offers something more.
Canadian film industry thriving
The fact that TIFF has become the largest and most influential film festival in North America has to, in some ways, be credited to the success the film industry has had in Canada in general.
Even though over the years many Canadian film makers moved to the U.S. in hopes of getting their foot in the film business door, Canada’s cheaper production costs have always attracted those looking to produce a movie on a lower budget.
The 1996 Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit (OFTTC) provided eligible Ontario-based media productions to receive a 15 percent refund. To date, the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) increased the OFTTC rate to 35 percent of the production’s expenditures.
With the current trend of cinema moving toward the production of stereoscopic 3-D movies, film companies have an advantage in a recent partnering with universities across Ontario, such as York University.
Canadian cinema is said to be thriving with the introduction of new jobs in the media production sector and a growth in revenue of over $4.2 billion through 2013, according to the OMDC.
The new harmonized sales tax, which went into effect in B.C. and Ontario on July 1, is also expected to be a boon the industry, especially in B.C. where the HST’s additional 7 percent tax saving for studios makes the province more competitive with studios in Ontario and the U.S.
According to the Smart Tax Alliance, the HST savings is attracting multimillion-dollar movie and TV productions to B.C. and is expected to create over 100,000 new jobs in the industry, leading to over $10 billion in investment by 2020.
