After 2 years of pandemic weirdness, Toronto's outdoor movie festival is back with a full slate of films

After two weird years of pandemic-related adaptations, the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show, the city's summer-long, multi-venue outdoor movie festival, is back to provide what co-founder and curator Emily Reid calls "curated outdoor cinema." The festival announced its 2022 line-up on May 30, and it features a mix of Hollywood favourites, indie films and documentaries. Each feature is also paired with a Canadian short film.

Reid started the festival in 2011, shortly after moving to Toronto. She says that at the time, outdoor cinema in the city was mostly in the downtown core. There was almost nothing in the places where people actually lived.]

"There was TIFF in the Park, there was Harbourfront, and they were well-curated series, but they were very much in the urban downtown where really not very many people lived at that time," she says. 

She started off by showing movies at Christie Pits Park, near her home. The event quickly became a hit, regularly bringing more than 1,000 people to the park for Sunday night screenings. Over the years, it expanded to other parks around the city.

And then, in 2020, COVID brought all that to a screeching halt. Gathering restrictions meant that only 100 people could go to any outdoor event. TOPS switched to a ticketed model, holding events solely at Fort York, and only for 10 days. In 2021, they stayed in Fort York, and gave space for some of the city's other film festivals — including Inside Out, Reel Asian and the Regent Park Film Festival — a chance to curate the screenings.

"There were so many festivals that hadn't seen their audiences in two years at that point," says Reid.

For 2022, TOPS is playing in four parks across Toronto. This year's theme is "Curtains Up."

"It's both literal that the season is curated to highlight performers and performances on screen, but it is also metaphorical as our curtains are up. It's also a celebration of curtains coming up around the city," she says.

Reid says that TOPS prides itself on being a "public" festival that isn't just curated for cinephiles. She says her goal is to have a festival that is both accessible and popular, while also giving exposure to up-and-coming filmmakers and letting a broad audience see indie films that aren't always widely screened.

"Popular cinema is a great community builder, but so is art cinema," she says. "We really like to have the opportunity to share with people the kinds of cinema that they may not see in a space like this by anyone else. So we try to really stretch ourselves to make sure that we have a great balance in that way. And the bigger the season we have, the more we can achieve that balance between nostalgic favourites and popular classics and emerging films by emerging talent."

2022 TOPS Schedule:

Fort York National Historic Site (100 Garrison Rd., Toronto) 

Time: Gates 7 p.m. / screening at sundown (approx. 9 p.m.) 

Thursday, June 23, 2022 

Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (Beyoncé and Ed Burke, 2019, USA) 

Short: Light Down Low - DESIIRE (AYO, 2019, Canada) 

Friday, June 24, 2022 

But I'm a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999, USA) 

Short: I Wanna Make a Movie, or I Wanna Die Trying (Eric Bizzarri and Pony Nicole Herauf, 2021, Canada) 

Sunday, June 26, 2022 

Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001, Australia/USA) 

Short: Cell Block Tango: Reimagined (Saccha Dennis, 2022, Canada) 

Monday, June 27, 2022 

Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008, UK/USA) 

Short: Terra Nova Matadora (Rhonda Buckley, 2015, Canada) 

Tuesday, June 28, 2022 

Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001, USA) 

Shorts: Jesse Jams (Trevor Anderson, 2016, Canada) + Imitations (Fabian Velasco and Milos Mitrovic, 2016, Canada) 

Christie Pits Film Festival (Christie Pits Park, 750 Bloor St. W, Toronto)  Time: Event start 6 p.m. / screening at sundown (approx. 9 p.m. in July, 8:30 p.m. in August)

Sunday, July 3, 2022 

A League of Their Own (Penny Marshall, 1992, USA) 

Short: Magic in Plain Sight (Paige Gratland, 2022, Canada) 

Sunday, July 10, 2022 

Paris is Burning (Jennie Livingston,1990, USA) 

Shorts: Haus (Joseph Amenta, 2018, Canada)

Sunday, July 17, 2022 

Mermaids (Ali Weinstein, 2017, Canada) 

Short: Merb'ys (Jamie Miller, 2020, Canada) 

Sunday, July 24, 2022 

Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950, USA) 

Shorts: The Women's Hour (Allison Johnston, 2020, Canada) + Camera Test (Joyce Wong, 2019, Canada) 

Sunday, July 31, 2022 

Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000, USA) 

Short: Turning Tables (Chrisann Hessing, 2018, Canada) 

Sunday, August 7, 2022 

Learn to Swim (Thyrone Tommy, 2021, Canada) 

Short: Broken Orchestra (Charlie Tyrell, 2019, Canada) 

Sunday, August 14, 2022 

Cabaret (Bob Fosse,1972, USA) 

Short: The Man That Got Away (Trevor Anderson, 2012, Canada) 

Sunday, August 21, 2022 

The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-Wai, 2013, Hong Kong/China) 

Short: Emptying the Tank (Caroline Monnet, 2018, Canada) 

Sunday, August 28, 2022 

David Byrne's American Utopia (Spike Lee, 2020, USA) 

Shorts: The Story of the Dancing Heart (Sacha Samay and Arcentales Cajas, 2021, Canada) + Monologue Harmonic (Bawaadan Collective, 2021, Canada) 

Corktown Common (155 Bayview Ave., Toronto) 

Time: Event start 7 p.m. / screening at sundown (approx. 9 p.m.) 

Thursday, July 7, 2022 

Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952, USA) 

Short: Esmerelda's Castle (Rachel Cairns and Sarah Hempinstall, 2017, Canada) 

Thursday, July 14, 2022 

Best in Show (Christopher Guest, 2000, USA) 

Shorts: The Afterlifetime of Colm Feore (Hannah Cheesman, 2019, Canada) + Nightlife (Trevor Anderson, 2014, Canada)

Thursday, July 21, 2022 

Soul Power (Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte, 2008, USA) 

Short: Ruff & Tuff - Stranger Cole's Toronto Roots (Chris Flanagan, 2017, Canada) 

Thursday, July 28, 2022 

Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002, USA) 

Short: Short Round Up (Nobu Adilman, 2019, Canada) 

Bell Manor Park (1 Bayside Ln., Etobicoke) 

Time: Event start 7 p.m. / screening at sundown (approx 8:30 p.m.) 

Thursday, August 11, 2022 

The Circus (Charlie Chaplin, 1928, USA) 

Shorts: Vistas: Dancers of the Grass (Melanie Jackson, 2009, Canada) + The Little Deputy (Trevor Anderson, 2015, Canada) 

Thursday, August 18, 2022 

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (Questlove, 2021, USA)

Short: Whatever Happened to Jackie Shane (Sonya Reynolds and Lauren Hortie, 2014, Canada) 

Thursday, August 25, 2022 

Josie and the Pussycats (Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, 2001, USA) 

Short: Idols Never Die (Jerome Yoo, 2019, Canada)