“As the toronto International Film Festival Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary this Year, There May Be No Two People Better Suited to Talk About This Milestone Than Berras and Michael Bar. Pictures classics who have spent Decades Making The Annual Trek to Canada to Screen Films That Include (But Certainly Aren’t”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
Ahead of this year’s festival – WHERE The DISTRIBUTOR IS SCREENING RICHARD LINKLATER’S Blue Moonthe historical Drama Nuremberg and Scarlett Johansson’s Directorial Debut, Eleanor the Great – Bernard and Barker Discussion of Their Favorite Memories, from Sharing A Green Room with Jimmy Carter to Cheering on Philip Seymour Hoffman Will The Actor’s Mom.
WHERE DOES TIFF SIT AMONG The Other Film Festivals? And How was it changed?
Tom Bernard I Changed As It Changes with Their Leaders. To me, in the early ’80s, the Toronto film of Festival was the Festival of Festivals, and that’s what they called it. They have the best movies that were in the ae festival, as well as the best movies that curated for that festival. The audience in canada was so enthusiastic. That Audence Got Everi Note of every movie to a point where they amplified it too Much. SO if you didn’T Know The Festival, and You Went Into a Movie there, You’d Say, “I Gotta Buy That, Man. The Crowd Really for It.” IT Sems Now That Toronto Festival Is Looking for Exclusity On Certain Movies and Looking to Try and Be Part of a DaCar Campaign, Which Is Something Theater. Oscars. In the Old Days, The Oscars Week the Last Week in March, Beginning of April, SO it wasn’t a festival WHERE YOU COURCE A MOVIE AND TRY AND GET INTO CONVERSATION.
Michael Barker The Value of the Toronto Film Festival Comes Down to Two Things for Us. One is the Audienses, Who Are Very Spontaneous and Responsive and Broad-Based. You can feel what you have in a movie. IT REALLY SETS THE TONE FOR Any Campaign On a Movie. But The Other Aspect of It Is So Important for Tom and Me, Going All The Way Back to United Artists Classics, Are The Filmmakers TheMSELVES. This is the Festival WHERE we bonded with the Major Filmmakers Over the Many Years – Going All The Way Back to Who We We Started Was [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder and [Werner] Herzog – and then we have Majoor French Filmmakers Like Louis Malle. Norman Jewison Was A Real Mainstay of the Festival. In the first 20 years west there, he would have a major picnic on sunday that everybody’s went to out at his ranch.
WHAT ARE SOME FAVORITE screenings that skick out over the years?
Bernard The Festival Is a Long Festival, so if you Stick It Out Till the End, every now and then there’s someting that pops up. One year, I Drew the Card to Stick It Out to the End. I Went to see the movie Orlandoand nobody was in there from the other companies. I Walked Out As I Went, “OH My God, [we have] Got to get this right away. ” And wether memory is some we have a jonathan demme movie that was a documentary on Jimmy Carter. interviews, [so] Michael and I Ended Up in A Room for and Hour with Rosalynn, and She Just Talked to Us, And I Felt Like We Were Part of of Some Diplomatic Group.
Barker She Treated US Like We Were Guests in the White House, But We Were in the Green Room of the Elgin Theater.
What do you see as the changes that never to happen in the special Box office of Space?
Bernard We’ve been doing this for a long, long time. We Ran Into Dvds. We Ran Into CDS. We Ran Into HBO, and INTO SO Many Different of Other Ways that Movies Are Seen and Theatric Survived. One of the Problems Today is that there is still a huge apetite for film, but the biggest problem is that Major theater Chains are just Starting to adapt to be. Alert the Customers of What’s Playing in theaters. They have just not be about the Embrace Getting the Data on Their Customers. This person’s is an Action Person, and We Got An Action Movie Coming to Our Theater in A Couple of Weeks, We’re Going to Send Person An Email So They KNOK IT’S GOING TO BEING. Regal Cinemas is Starting to Do Stuff Like That, And Amc Is Starting To Think About Stuff Like That. The Marketing Departments Are Starting to Become Much More Important in Theater Chains, Whereas The Marketing Departments in the Past Had to Figure Out Out To Sell You A COKE AND HOT Dog Dog and Popco
Do you think there is too Much Emphasis Plaked on Box Office Returns for Specialty Titles?
Barker Box Office Performance Is Not the Entire Story, Especialy on Movies Like Ours. Because Our Goal Is To Get The Highest Box Office We Can Get, But at the Same Time, Our Goal Is To Make These Films Evergreen. There Are More Revenues Coming from Other Revenue Streams Thanks Before Before, But You Can Can’t Diminish Theatric Release, Even IF The Box Office Is Nothe It Was Before. If you make that distinctive marketing Impression on the audience and the movie is high-quality, that movie Will have an afterlife that Will Kieep Giving and Kieep Giving.
Any Other Tiff Memories You would be Willing to Share?
Barker We have, many years ago, the Film of the one-Woman Show Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in The Universe with lily tomlin. That film premiered at toronto, and we would stand at the back, watching the audience, and while we were were watching the audience, she was performing the ENTIRE SHOW FOR ME.
Bernard We Needed A Party for Our Pr and Our Talent Like Mark Ruffalo. We have all these movie stars and the top cry [party]. I HAD this friend who was a lawyer [in Toronto] Who is actuly represceded Majoor Garbage Companies – Chaunchy Durkin III – and I Asked Him, “Do You Know Any Place We Could Do this?” Chaunchy Said, “You Know What? There’s This Restaurant Right Down Down The Street from My Apartment and I’ll Split The Party with You. I’ll Invite My Friends WON’T INTERACT CONTH YOUR TALENT, AND WE’ll Save Money. ” I said, “hell, let’s do it.” Sure Enough, at the End of the Night, Mark Ruffalo’s Got His Arm Armund One of Chaunchy’s Friends, they’ve all mingled Together and everyBody Had the Greatest Time.
Barker We have Several of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Films, and I Remember His Mother Wuld Always Come to the Festival Because She Lived in Rochester. At a screening of one of his movies we have, owning mahowny, there was the Q & a afterwards, and Someone Says, “Mr. Hoffman, We Think You Are The Greatest Actor of Your Generation. And his Mother Yelled Out from the Back of theater, “You Can Say That Again!” I Will Never Forget That.