After raising eyebrows last year when a non-Canadian film was chosen for the prestigious opening-gala spot, the Toronto International Film Festival will start this year on a hyper-Canadian note.
Score: A Hockey Musical, which has already been drumming up publicity during its filming, will have its world premiere at TIFF’s opening gala on Sept. 9. Programmers picked the British film Creation, about the travails of Charles Darwin, to open the 2009 festival – only the third time a non-Canadian film had opened TIFF in its three-and-a-half-decade history.
There is no written rule that the opening movie has to be Canadian. Still, the Canadian film industry depends heavily on TIFF, one of the world’s prominent film festivals, and TIFF bills itself as a champion of Canadian film.
“It’s interesting,” TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey said Wednesday. “In advance of making this announcement this morning, I was on Twitter and Facebook asking people, ‘Should we open with a Canadian film or not?’ And the response that I got was overwhelmingly, ‘Yes, Canadian.’ But then one or two dissenters said, ‘It should be just whatever film you think is the best for opening.’
“So, clearly, at least among Canadian TIFF-goers, and probably some people outside Canada as well, they understand that standing up and supporting our Canadian industry is something that we should do as often as we can on opening night. Having said that, if we hadn’t found a film that fit opening night, we wouldn’t have gone Canadian,” Bailey added.
In recent months, Toronto-based distributor Mongrel Media has been doling out tidbits of information about Score to the media, in a way uncharacteristic of most Canadian films. Expectations are that Mongrel is ramping up an extensive media and grassroots marketing campaign for the film directed by Canadian Michael McGowan, as it did for his previous film, One Week.
Bailey explains that all distributors typically pitch films to TIFF programmers that they think would be perfect for opening night. So extra publicity by any one distributor doesn’t factor into the decision since they all come at TIFF programmers aggressively. Bailey added that he wasn’t aware of the publicity Mongrel has been drumming up in the media.
Among the bits of detail, Mongrel noted months ago that Olivia Newton-John will star in the film as the mother of a talented, home-schooled hockey player. Score will also feature cameos by such unlikely screen actors as media personalities George Stroumboulopoulos and Evan Solomon, along with appearances by singers Nelly Furtado, Hawksley Workman and others.
“I really hope this is a story that’s fun and entertaining and that really makes us feel Canadian, whatever that may be,” the director said at the TIFF press announcement.
Brief clips of the film shown Wednesday featured Score’s lead, played by actor Noah Reid, singing in one scene about his friendship with a girl next door and trying to convince his protective parents that another game of shinny won’t undermine his studies. In another scene, he questions hockey violence as a full-blown, on-ice brawl turns into choreographed half-fighting, half-dancing, with one character commenting that hockey without fighting would be like Kraft Dinner without the cheese. Pasta, yes, but not satisfying to the palette.
The musical has 19 original songs with lyrics by McGowan and music by an assortment of artists, including the Barenaked Ladies, Amy Sky, Newton-John, Workman and singer-songwriter Marc Jordan (who also stars in the film).
TIFF organizers also said they are extending the festival by an extra day to include a full second weekend of screenings. Typically, Canadian films are given extra screen time toward the end of the festival. And come September, organizers will also be steering public attention toward exhibitions at TIFF’s new Bell Lightbox headquarters, which is still under construction. The festival box office will move to a new site across the street from the building on Toronto’s King Street West.
