As a starving student (that's not just a cliché either; I've lived through entire semesters on cafeteria coffee alone) the idea of attending an international film festival like TIFF has always seemed out of my financial grasp. It didn't help that I live in Ottawa, but in my head it was only the rich and fabulous who could afford to enjoy the festival's screenings and stars. This was one of the reasons why I was so excited to be awarded the Sid Adilman Mentorship Programme internship: here was a chance to attend the festival, all of the festival, on a student's budget (i.e.: for free. Students will enjoy absolutely anything if it's free.)
So I arrived at the festival, brimming with excitement and the awareness that I was extremely privileged to be here. I haven't lost that sense of privilege, but what I've realized since arriving in Toronto is that the festival is far more accessible than I ever imagined.
Take the festival programming at Yonge-Dundas Square as an example. Every day a silent film is being screened right there, in front of the Eaton Centre, for FREE. And every night a special event, in conjunction with a festival screening, brings to film-loving Torontonians the stars, musicians and directors behind the festival's line-up. There's been a lot of talk already this week, at various industry programme events, about how new media is influencing cinema and how audiences consume it. Well, pay attention to what's happening at Yonge-Dundas: the free line-up is making cinema 100% interactive.
I was lucky enough to be on-hand yesterday when the annual Toronto Zombie Walk lumbered into the square after terrorizing the city for an hour in search of human flesh and brains, and groggily saluted George A. Romero, the unarguable master of the zombie flick. Romero's newest film, Survival of the Dead, was screening at 11:59 PM as part of the festival's Midnight Madness programme, and his classic, Night of the Living Dead, screened for those assembled at Yonge-Dundas. Again, allow me to stress, the latter was FREE.
Before heading on-stage to greet his fans, Romero said he hoped his new film would live up to their visible enthusiasm.
On-stage, Romero spoke briefly about Night of the Living Dead (1968), about how he felt compelled to do something fun, something different from the commercials on which he built his career as a director, and the fact that he never expected it to become the cult smash that it now is.
"We were just a bunch of young people that had a commercial production company, doing commercials, industrial films, and the like, and we all wanted to make a movie and we wound up making Night of the Living Dead," he explained.
"We were sort of pissed off that the '60s hadn't really changed the world and some of that anger is in the film. But basically we were just trying to make a good old-fashioned horror film that pushed the envelope a little bit. I'm still stunned. When we first made the film I had no idea that it would be showing here tonight. It's still stunning to me. Somehow it survives. And the new film is called Survival of the Dead. There's a bit of irony there. Thank you all for being willing to keep watching this stuff!"
He was then presented with the oddest trophy I have ever seen - a silver CN Tower being overwhelmed by a bloody, severed hand - in honour of his becoming a Canadian citizen and deciding to reside in Toronto. The trophy was presented to him by Kyle Ray, Toronto city councillor, who joked that the assembled crowd looked something like a council meeting. He presented Romero with the prize in honour of his efforts to "bridge understanding between the living and the undead through the cinematic arts."
"I saw the film in '69 and it made a difference in cinematography, just made a complete shift in what people expected in film," Ray said.
The undead crowd responded in a fashion that was altogether too lively if you ask me: are zombies really supposed to whoop?
"It's a celebration of the dead," said Zombie Walk organizer Thea Munster of the gathering.
"Hey, TIFF's all about the beautiful. It's time for the ugly and the dead to rise."
And rise they did. A dripping, sticky, oozing crowd of undead Jessica Rabbits and Marios and Quentin Tarantino's The Brides, complete will ripped clothing and gaping head wounds. The care given to these costumes was incredible.
"It's awesome," said "zombie" Katie Balforth of the experience.
"It's good to do something like this for Romero. He's kind of the father of zombies so it's good to get out and dress up and show him some respect."
As a fan of the horror genre, and of a good brain-munching zombie flick, it was fairly incredible to witness hundreds of fans like me face-to-face with someone who was, for many of them, a hero. The people in the square yesterday night were real fans of cinema...the sort of people you see dressed up at the opening night of a science fiction or fantasy movie.
Their excitement was tangible. It's the same excitement, the same palpable sense of expectation, that I've felt at every single public screening that I've attended here. Forgive me for getting sentimental here, but I'm very glad to see that everyone, regardless of student status or ability to purchase a festival ticket package or not, can get a taste of that raw passion for the movies.
Last night it was as though Romero's zombies dragged their rotting, bleeding, decomposing bodies out of his film and onto the street. And I honestly believe that what I witnessed is how cinema ought to be enjoyed.
Enough of this stoic consideration of a film in a darkened theatre. Let's howl at the movie screen, jeer, laugh, cry. Not only is the programming at Yonge-Dundas free, it's completely immersive.
All photos by Michelle O. For the full list of free TIFF programming visit http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/programmes/yongedundassquare.
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