Are you ready for the grand mashing of the cinephiles and the multiplexers come Sept. 12?
That’s the date when the Toronto International Film Festival finally debuts its spanking new Bell Lightbox, a five-screen facility that will cater to a broader spectrum of moviegoers than TIFF has ever had to deal with before.
It will be like the opening of the Panama Canal, when the sea creatures of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans suddenly met, resulting in strange new connections.
In one corner, there will be the purists of TIFF Cinematheque (formerly Cinematheque Ontario), who for two decades have studied classic films in the church-like setting of the AGO’s Jackman Hall, where bottled water is the sole sustenance allowed in the chamber.
In the other corner, there will be the regular moviegoers of the shopping malls, the megaplexes and the gaming arcades, who expect a wide variety of films and an even broader selection of food, candy and beverages.
The Lightbox has been designed to appeal to both groups, but will the water sippers get along with the popcorn crunchers?
That’s the fervent desire of Piers Handling, the TIFF director and CEO, who has been working with his team for the past 10 years to make this coming together as smooth as possible.
When I reached him this week in Paris, where he and co-director Cameron Bailey were screening possible contenders for their annual September film fest, Handling talked about the Lightbox in terms that were almost sensual.
“We wanted to create a space of desire that people would absolutely want to go to and enjoy the experience,” he said.
“A space where it wasn’t just a transactional experience of them paying money and seeing a film and leaving a building. We actually wanted to create a space where people would come, socialize and stay. We spent an immense amount of time thinking this through.”
By “stay” he means that moviegoers will be encouraged to roam through the galleries and learning studios the Lightbox also houses, along with its bistro, restaurant and lounge. There will be no post-screening race to the parking lot, if Handling and his team have their way.
Part of making the Lightbox that “space of desire” will be providing the type of food and drink that enhances the film-watching experience without turning the place into the hog wallow that so many modern cinemas have become.
The Battle of the Popcorn has already been waged and won — or lost, depending on your perspective. Handling said there will be popcorn allowed in at least some of the theatres, which range in size from the 550-seat Theatre 1 to the 80-seat Theatre 5.
Deciding what food to allow into the Lightbox took a lot of discussion and compromise.
“Some people don’t like (theatre) food: they don’t like the smell and they don’t like the noise it makes,” Handling said.
“Certainly when you’re watching a silent film, the cinephiles really want to concentrate in an environment that’s free of distractions. The traditional Cinematheque audience that we’ve trained for the last 20 years haven’t had food in their screenings, but we’ll be moving them into a new building (the Lightbox) . . .
“And since we’ll be trying to attract a wider audience to a lot of our film screenings, many people will expect food. We just want to make sure we don’t alienate one audience while trying to attract another audience.”
Menus are still under discussion, but Handling said they will exclude the most noxious offerings, such as those awful nachos with chemical cheese goop sold in multiplexes.
“We want to make it upscale food, the kind of food our audience would expect to get at a screening. So I don’t think nachos or hamburgers or hot dogs will be sold.
“Maybe sushi will, but we’ll have to listen to what our audience wants, what works, what doesn’t. We expect to hear back. It’s not like we’re trying to ram something down people’s throats. Because we’ll be an organization programming on a year-round daily basis, we’ll have to listen to our audience.”
Lightbox films will be tilted more towards serious cineastes than casual snackers, which could make the food dilemma easier. The emphasis will be on documentaries, foreign-language films and Canadian movies. In other words, the type of films normally seen at TIFF’s annual festival, which will be at full throttle when the Lightbox opens.
There are no plans to show blockbuster franchises like Iron Man, Twilight or Sex and the City even though they could rake in a lot of dough for TIFF, which still needs to finish paying for the Lightbox. For one thing, TIFF isn’t in the blockbuster business. For another, it’s determined not to compete directly with commercial cinemas, like the Scotiabank multiplex just up the road.
“Cineplex is a valued partner,” Handling said. “We’re not there to compete with anyone in the commercial industry.”
This doesn’t mean there will be a complete ban on blockbuster-style films at the Lightbox, Handling said. There might be a premiere or a TIFF Gala presentation of such a film that could make good use of the facility.
“It’s a process of learning and adjustment,” Handling said.
“We’ll have to adjust our film programming, I would imagine, as we learn. We’ve never before been an organization that runs films every single day of the year, so I’m sure there’s going to be immense learning that goes on there as well.”
Two things that both the cinephiles and the multiplexers will appreciate at the Lightbox are the seats and the sightlines. TIFF officials looked at theatres around the world when designing their own movie palace. They imported seats from France that are a cut above regular butt holders — they fit my six-foot-six frame just fine — and they spared no expense on the screens and projectors.
“Seats had to be really comfortable, with a lot of leg room,” Handling enthused. “And they will have cup holders!
“We wanted fabulous screening conditions in terms of the size of the screen, the image projected on the screen and, of course, we needed to have all the technical apparatus. We wanted to be able to show 35mm films in 35mm — and also 70mm films, in one of the cinemas.
“We wanted to be able to show silent films at the correct speed, so we have variable-speed projectors that allow us to do silents. We wanted to be able to show 16mm. We wanted to be able to show the films in whatever format they’d originally been shot.”
The Lightbox will also be able to screen movies in 3-D, a late addition to the complex. When planning began in 2000, no one was seriously thinking about 3-D as a regular commercial offering.
Handling doesn’t think the Lightbox will cause problems for the smaller theatres and chains, either, including the newly restored Carlton Cinema at Carlton and Yonge Sts. or the Royal on College St. If all goes the way TIFF hopes, the Lightbox will spark interest in non-blockbuster films that will be good for all exhibitors.
Will Lightbox tickets cost more than usual? Handling said pricing is still being set, but people should expect tickets to cost about the same as they do at the multiplexes.
All this, and popcorn too? It sounds almost too good to be true, but we’ll see on Sept. 12. Just make sure you don’t try to smuggle in any burgers, dogs or nachos.
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment...old-the-nachos
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