Presenting a new podcast from deep inside TIFF 2024

Starting Monday, Commotion is bringing you a new daily podcast during the Toronto International Film Festival. TIFF in 12 is a quick twelve-minute episode about what's buzzing, from the hottest movies, to who's turning heads on the red carpet, to those special moments that have people talking. Film critics Teri Hart and Rad Simonpillai join Elamin Abdelmahmoud daily September 9th-13th. Find Commotion wherever you get your podcasts.

"Listen, this is the TIFF podcast I've always wanted," says Elamin. "The vantage point of the people who see everything and do everything at the festival, and have a good view into the whirlwind that is TIFF. You'll hear about the movies we are liking, the movies that are a little over-hyped, and all the insider goss you need to know."

Read an excerpt from today's show below where Teri, Rad and Elamin introduce the podcast and talk about some of the bigger issues around this year's festival, including the Drake/Kendrick style beef with the Venice Film Festival and TIFF's middle age identity crisis.

Elamin: We are going to shift and talk about the biggest movie event in the world right now, and that is the Toronto International Film Festival.

Can I just tell you there was a gigantic Tragically Hip singalong that happened after the premiere of this new Tragically Hip docuseries at TIFF. I was at both. I saw the first bit of the series and everyone in the theatre was crying, and then everyone at the singalong was crying. To me, this is a bit of the magic of TIFF. 

Rad, Teri — this is where I get to tell people that as the festival takes over the city, you two are running around seeing movie after movie after movie. Teri, I think you mentioned that on Thursday you saw eight movies.

Introducing the TIFF in 12 podcast

Elamin: The three of us — Teri, Rad and I — are going to be doing a special bonus podcast for Commotion that we're calling TIFF in 12. It is going to be a daily 12-minute TIFF podcast that will start dropping in the Commotion podcast feed starting Monday. I'm really excited to be doing this with the two of you. I'm so glad that we're doing it. It's going to be a good time, I think.

Rad: I'm just, like, mad that you're going to take away my screening time to come talk to you. You pulled this in the past, and it's like—

Elamin: Yeah, we're monopolizing all your time for 12 minutes.

Rad: You try scheduling TIFF and you see how easy that 12 minutes is.

Teri: King Street will be saved from hearing Rad and I yell at each other.

Unpacking TIFF's middle aged identity crisis

Elamin: I want to talk about the state of the festival itself. This is the 49th year of the festival, but also like a lot of arts organizations, TIFF has faced some big challenges in recent years. How would you gauge the festival's health going into this year?

Teri: So out of those 49 years, this is my 29th film festival that I've covered. So I've really seen a huge change within the festival. And I would say for the first, like, 45, 46 years of the festival, it was just growth, growth, growth. And I don't just mean growth in terms of the number of movies that are playing at the festival. That's not the sign of success. The sign of success for a film festival is how the industry views the film festival. And I think that we did see for those first 45 or 46 years, you know, bigger, bigger premieres. I mean, just a few years ago, we had Steven Spielberg come to TIFF for the first time. We were still having those firsts happening that were really, really exciting. 

And I think it's fair to say now that TIFF is experiencing a bit of a middle age identity crisis. And it's not 100 per cent the festival's fault at all. In fact, I would say very little of it is the festival's fault. The fault lies in how different the moviegoing experience is for people, what people are willing to think of as a theatrical experience. They'll go to and spend $17 for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice no matter what I say about it, probably, yeah. But do they want to go and see, you know, Babygirl? Or do they want to go and see something that is more considered a "festival film" that is discovering something new about human beings?

Elamin: It's called "cinema." You can say the word. 

Teri: Yeah, yeah. So the festival is struggling with what people think of as the theatrical experience, versus what people think of as a streaming experience. And so they're evolving a little bit and that's their job, to evolve. You know, they've got a new program called Prime Time where we're seeing TV shows. But it will be really interesting to see how they continue to evolve with how the temperature has changed for the moviegoing audience. 

How TIFF competes against Venice and Telluride

Elamin: I think what's interesting is that TIFF arrives on the heels of two other big festivals — Venice and Telluride. So it has, like, some pretty significant competition because all those festivals compete in terms of trying to land a premiere. They're all trying to make your North American premiere at this festival, not those other festivals. And last month in Vanity Fair, the head of the Venice festival, Alberto Barbera, claimed that his event has become the festival of choice for anyone who wants to make their movie an Oscar contender. Because, and I quote here, there was almost no press in Toronto apart from trade publications. I'm looking at two press right now who might have some FEELINGS about that, Alberto. How well is TIFF holding up against its competitors, you think? 

Rad: Well, first of all, can we just acknowledge that Alberto is a troll? Okay, like this guy is always taking shots, you know? I don't know how Cameron Bailey keeps his composure with this dude always saying this stuff. He's been dragging us into this competition for a decade.

Elamin: Hang on. I just need to explain the names here. Alberto is the head of Venice, but also Cameron Bailey is the head of the Toronto International Film Festival. Like, they might be friendly, but they are definitely competitors.

Rad: It's like Kendrick and Drake, basically. And look, here's the thing. So the whole no press here. Maybe there's more European press in Venice because, like, it's a closer jaunt but Toronto has more North American press because it's closer. That's one thing. And then he's showing off about the world premieres thing. Like the whole world premiere competition is great and dandy. Like, Venice gets its world premieres, then Telluride gets world premieres. So does Toronto. Toronto has world premieres, too. It's got, like, Nightbitch with Amy Adams. You got the new Angelina Jolie, the new J.Lo movie. These are world premieres that Toronto gets.

On top of, it also gets those movies that premiered in the previous festivals. We're getting sloppy seconds on those other ones, too, and the stars are arriving too. So if you think about it, yeah, sure, there's this competition and everyone's getting their share of what's a world premiere. But Toronto gets kind of the best of both worlds. And as a public facing festival, I don't think the audience cares that the stars are in Venice first. They just care that the stars are here now. So the public, the audience that's attending the festival, they're just loving all the choices in the experience they get to have. And Toronto is not suffering at all for this world premiere competition.

Elamin: Yeah. Jacob Elordi, if you want to hang out with me after hanging out in Venice, I'm totally okay with that. Just putting that out there.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

For more from Teri, Rad and Elamin on #TIFF24, check out our podcast-exclusive episodes called TIFF in 12, dropping every day from September 9-13 about all the festival happenings you might have missed.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.