For many in the movie business, the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001 will forever be linked with the 26th Toronto International Film Festival.
It was 10 years ago that stunned filmmakers, celebrities and movie fans at the festival shifted their gaze from the big screen to TV sets positioned in the city's toniest hotel bars and lobbies, watching in horror as the U.S. terror attacks unfolded.
A dark pall immediately fell over what had been “a near perfect festival,” director Piers Handling would later say, sending distraught visitors including Glenn Close, David Lynch, Mark Wahlberg, Benjamin Bratt, Gina Gershon and Juliette Lewis scrambling to find ways to return home to loved ones while bringing the movie marathon to a sudden halt.
“It was chaos,” recalls Canadian director Carl Bessai, who was at the festival with his sophomore film “Lola.”
“In every hotel, every public gathering space there was a TV and people were by the TV watching CNN or whatever news feed.”
“A lot of lobbies had pulled TVs out on rolling stands and would kind of set them in an open area and people would sort of congregate ... Everyone was morose. It was really quiet and crippled.”
The devastating events shook scores of festival-goers, many of them U.S. filmmakers who lived in or had close ties to New York City, where 2,700 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Compounding their emotional turmoil was the fact air travel was grounded indefinitely. Finding a rental car that could take them across the border proved near impossible for many.
“Glenn Close, I think, was here and I ran into her and she was on her way to a car rental place,” recalls festival director Piers Handling.
“David Lynch was trapped, trying to get back to Los Angeles and he was trapped for days. I think at the end of it they rented a bus and a whole group of them actually bussed across America to go home.”
Producer Robert Lantos opened his home to displaced colleagues from Los Angeles, New York and Europe.
“My house became a kind of refuge because they were all stranded,” Mr. Lantos recalled. “I had dinners at my house and they were homeless so I took care of them.”
The night before the attacks, Mr. Lantos had been out partying to celebrate the world premiere of his film “Picture Claire,” starring Ms. Gershon and Ms. Lewis. He awoke the morning of Sept. 11 expecting to attend a press conference to promote his film.
“We were seriously pre-empted,” Mr. Lantos says.
The 36th Toronto International Film Festival, which runs this Thursday through Sept. 18, will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks with a four-minute film that will precede every public screening on Sunday, Sept. 11.
Handling says the short is meant to evoke the memories of festival-goers and includes the first-person accounts of directors Mira Nair and Paul Lynch, actress Ingrid Veninger, and Sony Pictures Classics co-founders Michael Barker and Tom Bernard.
“What a day,” Mr. Handling says of the confusion, fear and sorrow he encountered.
He notes that the city's downtown festival hotels became hubs for distraught filmmakers, journalists and visitors to share information and seek solace. Festival organizers brought in counsellors to help staff and guests who struggled with the tragedy.
Mr. Handling had spent the early morning of Sept. 11 trying to call Italian director Nanni Moretti in a bid to convince the recent Palm D'Or winner to visit Toronto. That was interrupted by the incomprehensible footage of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.
The moment he saw the skyscrapers fall, Mr. Handling says he switched off the television and went into “crisis mode.”
