James Lebrecht and Madeline Delp attend the premiere of Being Heumann at TIFF on Thursday.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
How does Canada’s biggest film festival kick off an 11-day celebration of all things global cinema – including and especially Hollywood – in the midst of a trade war with the United States? In the case of the Toronto International Film Festival: very, very carefully.
With the festival long past the days when it would open with a Canadian film, the first night of the 51st edition of TIFF on Thursday delivered the world premiere of Being Heumann, a disability-rights drama that was shot in and around Toronto but is funded by Apple, the epitome of Big U.S. Tech.
Although director Siân Heder’s seventies-set film hit most of the sweet spots when it comes to a typical TIFF opener – it’s a well-intentioned but stubbornly middle-of-the-road crowd-pleaser, featuring just enough familiar faces to keep corporate sponsors and well-heeled patrons happy – there was a cognitive dissonance in the geopolitical air that the festival could not help but uneasily brush against.
For starters, the film – chronicling an historic sit-in protest coordinated by activist Judy Heumann (played by Ruth Madeley) – is a resolutely American story of revolution and struggle. As Heumann storms a federal building in San Francisco (really, downtown Toronto) with her self-described cohort of “radical crips” in a bid to change the direction of U.S. politics for the better, you can practically hear Heder hum The Star-Spangled Banner in the background. Heck, the film ends with a scene set on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. That’s all well and good for the narrative that Heder wants to tell, but the movie’s themes clashed with the festival sentiments that preceded it.
“Welcome to TIFF, and welcome to the beautiful shores of – say it with me – Lake Ontario!” TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey said while greeting the crowd inside Roy Thomson Hall, taking obvious aim at U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent attempt at changing universally accepted hydronyms.
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That introduction was followed by a similar rallying cry from Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who noted that Canadian artists are so impactful they “can move mountains, even against the might of the U.S. government,” before also going on to name-check Lake Ontario.
The sentiments are certainly understandable and justified, and the crowd predictably ate it up – even if it felt like TIFF was having its patriotic McCain Deep’n Delicious Cake and eating it, too.
Given that the cultural tensions between this country and our neighbour to the south are not exactly new, a mildly cynical festival-goer (guilty as charged) might wonder if organizers could have foreseen the uneasiness that might arrive from opening a Canadian arts festival with a distinctly American production.
D'Arcee Charington Neal, Charlie Rush-Reese, Jon Beavers, Antwan Tolliver, Roberta Colindrez, Will Brill, Matthew Jeffers, Sian Heder, Dylan O'Brien, Daniel Durant, Rio Finnegan, Siena Rafter, Andrew Pilkington, Madeline Delp and David Permut at the premiere of 'Being Heumann.'Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
It’s not as if worthy Canadian films are in short supply this year.
Just down the street from the Being Heumann premiere Thursday night, Canadian director Nyla Innuksuk’s wonderful comedic thriller In the Heart of the South was having its world premiere. Friday, meanwhile, brings the world premiere of Michael Dowse’s action-comedy The Stunt Driver, another worthy contender for opening night. Or if TIFF is dead-set on the inspirational true-story route for its big kick-off slot, there’s the Canadian doc Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story, also debuting Friday, and as a gala title in Roy Thomson Hall, no less.
Zorga Qaunaq, left to right, Nyla Innuksuk, and Anna Lambe are pictured on the red carpet for 'In the Heart of the South.'Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
The last Canadian film to open TIFF was Daniel Roher’s 2019 doc about Robbie Robertson and The Band, which turned out well enough for Toronto (the film was well-received and delivered celebrity sizzle) and Roher (who went on to win the Best Documentary Oscar for his subsequent film Navalny).
Perhaps in this renewed era of cultural sovereignty, TIFF should plant a flag from Day One of the fest. It’s not like they’d be such an outlier, either. Cannes historically books a French film as its opening-night selection, even if those titles never travel outside of the country, and most international critics visiting the festival tend to skip them. TIFF is our festival – we can have it for one night.
What the festival is surely hoping won’t last longer than one day or night, though, are the hiccups inside its inaugural edition of TIFF: The Market.
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A seven-day event running parallel to the festival that gathers buyers and sellers of film and television inside the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the Market revealed some growing pains on its first day, with many delegates reporting surprisingly long lines to pick up their accreditation badges, if the passes had been printed by staff at all. Combine that technical snafu with the sparse level of activity on the convention floor – a space that is taken up by a conspicuously large food-court area, whereas you’d expect more company pavilions – and it wasn’t the best first impression for the Market, which is TIFF’s biggest initiative since opening its Lightbox headquarters 16 years ago.
But every first day of any festival will deliver some snags. And the festival did close off the night with one killer feature – the Midnight Madness premiere of Joshua Giuliano’s woodsy slasher River. Sure, it’s an American production, too, like Heder’s film. But between its masked psychopath and cottage-country setting, it’s not hard to see the flick as a stand-in for the dark, violent forces that are besieging peaceful, wilderness-heavy Canada.
As for the title body of water, it’s never named on-screen. But I have a few ideas.