Stephen Woolley on his commitment to projects he believes in

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If the Toronto International Film Festival is about marinating in films, then no one is more thoroughly steeped than the British producer Stephen Woolley.

He came to TIFF with the first film he produced, The Company of Wolves, in 1984. In 1992, he brought The Crying Game. This weekend, his 26th and 27th TIFF films will have their world premieres: The Limehouse Golem, a Victorian penny dreadful with a modern twist, on Saturday night; and Their Finest, a comedic drama about London filmmakers who make a morale booster during the Blitz, on Sunday afternoon.

"I'm a film buff," Woolley, 60, said in a wide-ranging phone interview last week. That's putting it modestly. What he does is fiercely keep alive a dying genre, the mid-budget adult drama with an edge. He finds filmmakers such as Neil Jordan, Shane Meadows and Todd Haynes, and supports them through their careers. (He hired The Limehouse Golem's director, Juan Carlos Medina, after catching his debut feature Painless at TIFF in 2012.) He sticks with projects he believes in: He hung in there with Carol, last year's Oscar darling, for 17 years, and The Limehouse Golem for 15.

For the past 10 years, his producing partner has been his wife, Elizabeth Karlsen, and Woolley has championed women's stories, as well as female writers and directors throughout his career. Their Finest, for example, was written by Gaby Chiappe, directed by Lone Scherfig (An Education) and stars Gemma Arterton. The Limehouse Golem was written by Jane Goldman and stars Olivia Cooke. His other female-driven films include Made in Dagenham, The End of the Affair and Scandal.

"Women are deprived of cinema – in Hollywood in particular," he says. "I find it odd. It's just odd! Why don't people recognize that women make the decision to go to the movies? That there's a whole world of cinema that they understand? The writers, directors and actresses are there. Yet, Hollywood is constantly pushing down both the talent and the audience."

Woolley grew up in London's Islington district "when it was very poor," he says. "Five of us slept in one room, we had a tiny kitchen and that was it. Although I think of my childhood as being privileged and lucky."

He started reading young, then discovered "cinema and the worlds it creates." In the 1970s, he worked at a political collective, the Other Cinema, which showed David Cronenberg's early work. From 1979 until the early '90s, he ran and programmed his own 400-seat cinema in London, showing 80 films a month.

"I showed Todd Haynes's first film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, illegally," Woolley says. "We did all-night kung-fu movies, all-day Laurel and Hardy days. I have quite eclectic tastes."

In the 1980s, Woolley opened Palace Video, a haven for cineastes. That morphed into the distribution company Palace Pictures, which released Neil Jordan's Angel and Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, along with films by Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. He became friendly with the filmmakers whose works he'd show. Two of his heroes, the producer Jeremy Thomas and the director John Boorman, separately urged Woolley to become a producer, because he had a passion for cinema and he understood financing – a rare combination.

"So I said to Neil [Jordan], 'You're a writer/director, and apparently I should be a producer, let's do a film together.' It was as simple as that," Woolley recalls. "I mean, it was crazy. I was young and innocent, and I ending up doing loads of jobs, assistant directing, props. We were sharing an apartment. It was wonderful."

That film was The Company of Wolves; with it, Woolley began his long association with TIFF. "No one will ever have a better screening of their film than they have at TIFF," he contends, enumerating why: Audiences are used to seeing the best of world cinema, and they bring that knowledge to the screenings. Each screening room has its own character, which filmmakers come to know. Audiences are supportive, rather than combative as they are in Cannes. ("I've been to Cannes 34 times. It's savage," Woolley says, chuckling. "It's like going into the Roman Colosseum.")

Filmmakers put small things into movies that most audiences wouldn't notice, "but TIFF audiences always pick up on them," Woolley continues. "They appreciate subject matter about race, gender, history. They know how difficult it is to get a film off the ground."

Cannes and Venice turned down The Crying Game; TIFF audiences made it a sensation. "They understand why filmmakers like Cronenberg, [Pedro] Almodovar or Neil Jordan do what they do," Woolley says. "I will always be thankful to Toronto for that."

Fittingly, both of Woolley's current TIFF films revolve around popular entertainments – Victorian music halls in The Limehouse Golem, 1940s cinema in Their Finest – and the transformative possibilities they offer.

"The great thing about cinema is, it's an escape that we're all doing together. We're all getting on the spaceship and going off," he says. "By escape, I don't mean fluff. Cinema can push us intellectually, makes us work. We create a universe and it can be challenging, thoughtful, philosophical, political. It illuminates life and can illuminate our own lives – all while being entertaining."

Woolley's greatest moments are "when an audience, all together, go [sucks in breath]," he sums up. "You look around and realize, 'Everyone thinks like me, everyone loves that character, everyone hates this situation.' It's that moment in the cinema where you realize, 'My God, we are all in this bloody thing together.'"

The Limehouse Golem plays TIFF Sept. 10, 9 p.m., Ryerson Theatre; Sept. 11, 10:30 a.m., Winter Garden; Sept. 15, 3:45 p.m. and Sept. 16, 9:30 p.m. at Scotiabank Theatre; Their Finest screens Sept. 11, 3:30 p.m., Roy Thomson Hall; Sept. 12, 3 p.m., Princess of Wales; Sept. 17, 11:45 a.m., Visa Screening Room.