September 17, 2017
SHARE
CANADALAND
#199 TIFF Is A Monster That’s Eating Itself
Every year, Toronto hosts some of the biggest stars in Hollywood as they debut their new films. But is the Toronto International Film Festival actually good for the city?
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Kevin Sexton
Producer

For one week every year, the Canadian press transforms into movie industry experts. Our newspapers run glossy red carpet photos of Hollywood stars and stories about which movies penned distribution deals with who. But who’s benefiting from all this?

Norm Wilner has been covering the Toronto International Film Festival for 30 years. As a film critic at NOW Magazine, he’s seen it grow into the monster it’s become.

If you want to read more, the Globe and Mail published this investigation (paywalled) into TIFF’s business over the weekend.

More from this series
Are tweens going to Make Podcasting Great again?
June 19, 2025
 Jesse Brown pulls a thread on his sweater and unravels a mystery.
June 16, 2025
What do you do when your recording goes south? Publish it anyway?
June 12, 2025
 Chaos can be strategy as well. -Brian Reed
June 9, 2025
  It made the media probably the next day, and then shit hit the fan. -“Laura”
June 2, 2025
 Dan Aykroyd blew in from Ottawa.  Andrea Martin came in from Maine and Joe Flaherty came in from Pittsburgh. Paul Schaffer came in from Thunder Bay. Marty Short and Eugene Levy and I came in from Hamilton. We congregated (in Toronto) because we had similar comic sensibilities.
May 26, 2025
“ It was hot girls having a blast. There's nothing wrong with that. I thought it was aspirational. I did not yet realize that we were in fact shooting porn and that that was actually happening in the back room of the bus that we were living on.” - Courtney Kocak, former Girls Gone Wild “Merch Girl”
May 19, 2025
“ My brother, first and foremost, was a good person. He was very bright, he was educated, and he was autistic. And I think had he not met the creeper hunter, I think he would still be alive today.” -Brother of “John Doe #1”
May 12, 2025
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND