According to Screen International Toronto's Piers Handling will be stepping aside from programming duties while remaining CE. He is reported to be taking applications for co-director job probably looking at the Cannes duo winning strategy.
In a recent interview he gave to Filmfestivals he was speaking of his programing directions.
What kind of films screen at Toronto?
I think Toronto has always been opened to every variety of film. Of course, popcorn movies don't always belong in a festival, but there are other kinds of mass entertainment films that are extremely interesting, perhaps that's one of the reasons why Toronto is one of the first festivals in the world to discover Asian cinema. That's a cinema that is totally connected to its audience, the films of Hong Kong, the great action movies of Tsui Hark, the kind of cinema that revels in the visual. We ran Tsui Hark's first films, we ran a lot of Lino Brocka's popular Filippino cinema before the European Art Festivals found them, because we didn't look down on them, we didn't dismiss them. And of course, Asia has now turned into the most dynamic area in the world when it comes to film.
What are your thoughts on Cannes?
Let's be realistic. Cannes is a European festival, and I think the Europeans, and the French in particular, have a certain notion of cinema which is very different from the American notion of cinema. I think cities and festivals reflect the geographical and cultural environment There is no question that Cannes is very much an expression of the French view of cinema which is cinema as high art. When you go to Berlin and Venice, you go to different notions of film, although the Europeans have a much more artistic notion of what cinema should be. In Toronto we show a wide range of cinema, from the wackiest, craziest Midnight Madness movies, which are designed to be fun, genre films which you don't see very much in the major European festivals.
Bruno Chatelin