Brave Films, Wild Nights: 25 Years of Festival Fever
Brian D. Johnson
2000; Random House
Published to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival (colloquially named “TIFF”, formerly named The Festival of Festivals), Brian D. Johnson (film critic for Maclean’s magazine) ambitiously chronicles the progression of the festival from being a notion by two enterprising men (Dusty Cohl and Bill Marshall), into a major centre where major world premieres and big business deals happen. No matter what, it’s hard not to get a buzz every fall upon gazing at the new festival lineup, and this book captures that buzz. TIFF had introduced North America to John Woo and Wong Kar-wai, and had made Diva, The Big Chill and American Beauty into big hits. Johnson nicely wavers between the nostalgic and the business sides, and sprinkles in some good old fashioned dirt (such as one famous director who may have spent time sequestered from the festival to watch porn all day, or my favourite- an anonymous festival volunteer having a tryst with Theresa Russell… standing up). Among the cast of this historical mosaic, it is nice to see mentions of such local players as the late film critic Jay Scott and filmmaker Ron Mann (the story of Mann premiering his new film with a print still wet from the lab shows how “fly by the seat of your pants” a multi-million dollar event can still be). But most interestingly, one sees how the landscape of cinema itself has changed in 25 years. To think how once one made a fuss about something like In Praise of Older Women – as of this writing, festival director Wayne Clarkson still won’t say whether the censored or complete version was eventually shown at the festival. From battling the censor board to hosting trends in world cinema, Brave Films, Wild Nights is a fine encyclopedia of memories about how a strange dream turned into a major player.
Originally published in much less sanitized form in Vol. #1, Issue #7.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.