The Toronto International Film Festival has a sterling reputation for bringing some of the world's best, most innovative, and most inspiring films to Toronto. Both during its annual festival, and year-round at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Theatre on King Street, Torontonians have looked to TIFF for the best in film for the past 40 years. This year, they can look a little closer to home.
TIFF In Your Park, launched in collaboration with
Park People, will see family-friendly movie titles screened around the city. Starting July 11, TIFF In Your Park will screen fourteen films in public parks around the city. David Carey, TIFF’s Director of Government and Foundation Relations, says, “At TIFF, we’re not a downtown-only institution. We’re Toronto’s home for film so we thought it was important to bring those cultural moments across the city.”
Titles like
Fly Away Home and
Ghostbusters will come to neighbourhood improvement areas, as well as Toronto Community Housing strongholds and high rise-intensive areas. TIFF is providing the AV support, while Park People have identified local community partners to help promote each screening. “We’re hoping that they’ll explore different types of cinema that they might not have seen before, and we’re hoping that TIFF bring people out of their homes for a shared experience,” says Carey.
TIFF In your Park has drawn their titles from hits and hidden gems TIFF has shown over their 40-year history. To kick off their anniversary year, TIFF will screen the 1992 TIFF People’s Choice Award winner
Strictly Ballroom in David Pecault Square, near TIFF’s flagship cinema. The party will then spread across the city; the final screening, Australia’s
Sapphires, about a Aborigine band, will screen at Fort York on September 25.
Carey says that some screenings might attract only 100 people, while others could see more than a thousand. But it’s not the number of people who come out, he says. It’s the experience that TIFF In Your Park is aiming for. “There’s something so special about sitting on the grass with your neighbours, and seeing a great film.” This summer, more Torontonians will get to experience that.