As the Toronto International Film Festival toasts its 35th anniversary, organizers are raising a glass to another milestone achievement: the opening of TIFF's sleek and airy, year-round headquarters in the city's downtown core.
TIFF Bell Lightbox, which has been in the works for a decade, officially opens its doors on Sunday with a block party bash and free programming. It continues as the host of movie screenings through the rest of this year's festival.
Designed by Toronto-based Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, the five-storey building is home to five cinemas as well as two gallery spaces, two restaurants, a lounge, a host of educational and archive facilities, as well as the TIFF group's offices. A 46-storey condominium project known as Festival Tower rises up behind Lightbox.
The goal is to extend TIFF's "something for everyone" philosophy throughout the year and to fill a gap between Toronto's multiplexes, repertory theatres and artist-run centres, according to the building's artistic director, Noah Cowan.
"Hybrid really sums us up," he told CBC News ahead of the building's grand opening on Sunday. "We're both a museum and a movie theatre. We're both a multiplex and a Cinémathèque. We're both a learning centre and a great place to have a drink."
Wide-ranging, film-related offerings
"The festival is famous worldwide for the broad umbrella that it represents [in terms of] cinema and the cinema-going experience — everything from the formal galas at Roy Thomson Hall to the kick-around feeling of the Midnight Madness [program]. That's really guided us here. We don't feel as though it needs to be one thing or another."
To that effect, the ambitious building's grand opening festivities are eclectic: Sunday's free outdoor party will include concerts by Polaris Prize nominees Karkwa, The Sadies and Radio Radio (as well as a surprise guest), a Wizard of Oz-themed family zone, dance performances, entry into the Essential Cinema film exhibit, screening of the film (which charts the history of the festival) and cinema-inspired installations from the likes of Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin and Douglas Gordon.
On Sunday night, Lightbox will roll out the red carpet for its first-ever movie premiere as part of TIFF: Bruce McDonald's Trigger, a rock 'n' roll reunion tale starring Molly Parker and the late Tracy Wright.
Also during the festival, Lightbox will also host a week of free, first-come, first-served screenings of past festival favourites, including American Beauty, Water, Away From Her, The Big Chill and The Princess Bride.
TIFF invites public 'to sample our wares'
"We made a very conscious choice that this would be a building with free entry, so you can walk in off the street, wander through the public floors of the building without a ticket, without anyone hassling you," Cowan said of the entertainment district building, which opens into a large, welcoming atrium.
"Of course, you have to pay to go see the big exhibitions and go see the movies most of the time, but we feel as though there's a kind of invitation to sample our wares."
'TIFF is a source of great pride ... Our greatest hope is that TIFF Lightbox will be able to hold that same place in the hearts of Torontonians.'—Noah Cowan
Designer Bruce Kuwabara's "concept of an open, accessible space absolutely married to what we wanted to project," Cowan added.
"We hope when people come into the building, they can sample past programming on information screens, they can go up into the Film Reference Library and Canadian film gallery and see what we can do with an exhibition. Maybe they'll want to go into the main exhibition as a result."
This fall, the venue's initial offerings range from exclusive film runs (including Xavier Dolan's Heartbeats and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), screenings of classic films from TIFF's Essential 100 list, filmmaker-hosted events (with David Cronenberg, Isabella Rossellini and John Waters among the inaugural guests) and MoMA's highly successful Tim Burton exhibition.
Lightbox sits on a prime city block newly named Reitman Square, after the site's past owners Leslie and Clara Reitman.
The Reitman family — including the couple's children: filmmaker Ivan Reitman and his sisters Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels — donated the land (worth more than $22 million) to build the $196 million Lightbox. The Reitmans also teamed up with Toronto developer Daniels Corporation to build the adjacent Festival Tower condo.
Funding for Lightbox came from corporate sponsors like Bell, the federal, provincial and municipal governments as well as a host of private donors and various foundations.
"The Toronto International Film Festival is a source of great pride for Torontonians: an internationally recognized cultural institution. Our greatest hope is that TIFF Lightbox will be able to hold that same place in the hearts of Torontonians," Cowan said.
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