♪ >> Hello.

Thanks for joining us on another edition of Canada Files.

I'm Jim Deeks.

If you follow the motion picture business, you know the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

TIFF ranks up there with Cannes, Venice and Sundance as one of the most prestigious public events of the year.

Our guest on this episode is Cameron Bailey.

Born in London, raised in Barbados, educated in Canada.

Recently appointed to the full time position of CEO of the Toronto festival.

>> Welcome to Canada Files .

>> Thank you.

>> First of all, congratulations on your recent appointment as CEO of the Toronto Film Festival.

>> It's exciting.

I'm looking forward to this next chapter.

>> You've been with the film festival for nearly 30 years.

I would imagine the appointment wasn't that much of a surprise.

I wonder if the 7-year-old boy who came here from Barbados, in the late 1960s, would have thought he could succeed to a position as lofty as you have.

>> Not at all.

I didn't know what a film festival was at that age.

I wasn't even that into movies.

I was into stories...

I read voraciously.

On weekends I would go to the public library, get an armload of books and work my way through all kinds of fiction.

It was only in university that I discovered film.

Then I got excited about movies.

But even then, when I started to write about movies, I never thought of an organization like the Toronto Film Festival and the position I'm now in.

>> Let's go back to 7 years old.

When you came to Canada, was it hard to adapt to a new country?

A much colder and whiter country... was it difficult for you?

>> Of course it was.

My sister and I landed in Toronto in August 1971.

We were part of a wave of immigrants that was changing the face of Toronto and eventually Canada as a whole.

There's been black people in Canada for many years including the Loyalist era 100s of years earlier.

But the numbers of people coming from the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, Southern Europe and all over the world was new!

That was partly because politics were changing in Canada.

This was the Trudeau era-- opening up, multiculturalism.

All of those things were happening.

It was an exciting time but if you're 7 years old running around, being chased in a school yard called the most horrific names, you don't know any of that.

For me as a kid, it was a matter of trying to understand how I was very different.

I'd just come from a country where everyone looked like me... just about.

To a country where I was a minority, singled out for that.

There was casual racism in all kinds of ways.

I had to get used to that.

Drop my Barbadian accent quickly.

Learn how to survive.

>> Did it have a long-lasting effect on you?

The discrimination that you felt in those early years?

>> It gave me through my whole life, a sense of being... an outsider, coming from the outside being empathetic to other outsiders of all kinds.

There are many waves of immigrants that continue to this day into Canada.

Newcomers always face some kind of barriers... just assimilating to Canadian society.

I'm very attentive to that.

But I'm also at home lots of different places.

I've been lucky enough.

By 8 or 9 years old, I'd had 3 different accents, lived in 3 different places.

Learned to get by in 3 different societies and cultures.

That, plus being able to travel later on, allowed me to feel partially at home in Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Eventually in Asia where I spent a lot of time travelling there.

>> What sparked your interest?

You said you were interested in stories, as a kid.

You went to university... and studied English literature.

What did you intend to do with that degree?

If you did finish your degree in English lit.

Were you already thinking I'd like to get into the motion picture industry somehow?

>> My 19-year-old plan was to do an undergraduate degree in English literature.

Then to become a journalist.

I'd chosen Western University in London, Ontario.

Which has a terrific journalism program.

I was hoping to get into that, do graduate work in journalism.

Then go on to becoming a reporter or a columnist, a film critic...whatever.

Some way of writing about culture and ideas.

That was what I was most interested in.

In my 2nd year at Western, I took an optional film course-- Contemporary Cinema.

Started with Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless .

Then went everywhere but Hollywood from there.

We saw lots of European, Latin American, Asian, African films.

Movies that I had never seen in my life.

I'd grown up watching movies on tv.

Whatever was being offered from old Hollywood.

I discovered that movies could do a lot more than just entertain.

They could contain ideas, were an art form onto themselves.

That's what got me started.

>> After you got out of university, you wrote for film.

Why didn't you decide that if I want to be in the motion picture industry, I'd better get off to LA or Vancouver real quick.

The last place most people wanting to get into movies in the mid 70s', would be Canada.

>> It never occurred to me.

I liked Toronto by that point!

Gotten used to it.

I'd grown up in Toronto.

I had friends and colleagues here.

Doors started to open for me.

When I graduated from Western, I came back to Toronto.

Began writing for a publication called Cinema Canada .

A trade publication covering the industry in Canada.

Met some people there.

I went onto an alternative weekly called NOW Magazine .

That was an exciting time for that publication.

It was like the Village Voice or the LA Weekly .

All these alternative publications that covered the latest in music, movies, and books.

It felt like you were on the cutting edge.

That was what kept me in Toronto.

I got to write about everything from Die Hard ... to experimental cinema, and new documentaries.

Eventually went abroad to cover the Berlin Film Festival and festivals all over the world for this publication.

>> Eventually you got a job-- as a part time programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival.

What are some of the films you brought to TIFF that TIFF might never have been aware of?

>> One thing I remember...

I started programming Perspective Canada .

At that point, we had a section devoted to Canadian films.

We were launching new films by Adam McGoyen, Patricia Rosema, Deepa Mehta, Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar.

>> If you follow Canadian film, these are now prominent names.

>> Certainly prominent.

>> We were showing their 1st and 2nd feature films.

Introducing them to audiences in Toronto, and the international film industry that came to our festival.

In 1991, I travelled with the head of the festival, Piers Handling, to Wagadugu, Burkina Faso in West Africa.

We attended FESPACA, the biggest African film festival in the world.

That introduced me to the global African film culture, the film makers, people who bought and sold African movies, and the curators.

I made some lifelong friendships there.

I came back and in 1995 started the Planet Africa section, devoted to films from the African continent and diaspora.

It included films like Spike Lee's documentary, For Little Girls , about the Birmingham church bombing.

Those were the kind of films we were bringing from the African American, Black British, Latin-American and Caribbean film makers.

>> That must have had tremendous effect on African film.

Was there an industry?

It would have been independent film makers in Africa.

A huge step-up for them to be featured in a film festival in Canada.

>> There were great African film makers-- Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé who were working very well between their home countries... Senegal, Mali and France.

Which was often funding these films as a colonial hang-over.

These were countries they had colonized many years earlier.

Those films often weren't making it to North America the same way.

The Toronto and New York Film Festival and other places were beginning to show more interest in those films.

One thing I wanted to do was cultivate an audience for African film in Canada and North America.

I felt by showing those films alongside films by film makers who were also part of the African diaspora .

Trying to build those bridges.

The cinematography, sense of pacing, rhythm, the way stories were told sometimes were quite similar between South Africa and the South Bronx.

Or between Bomako in Mali and Brixton in London.

Trying to build those bridges was what Planet Africa was all about.

>> By the time you started to work with TIFF in the early 90s, it had already established itself as one of the premier film festivals in the world.

I don't want to say ironic, but it was impressive.

The film festival was started in the mid 70s almost on a whim by a couple of well-connected marketing guys.

It quickly developed into a major industry event.

Well attended by stars, built a good reputation.

What was the secret sauce that put TIFF into the limelight or upper echelons of film festivals?

>> It boiled down to a combination of the glamour of the movies and the everyday embrace of the audience--people.

The prominent festivals, before TIFF began, were about glamour, prestige and exclusion.

To be in the Cannes or Venice film festival-- which was the first festival that was started.

That was out of reach for the everyday movie goer.

Because we were in North America, a more casual democratic approach to movies.

The TIFF founders were Henk Van der Kolk, Dusty Cohl, and Bill Marshall.

They were legends for us.

They had the idea to have some of that glamour... the red carpet, sizzle of what the movie industry is about.

But let's open the door to everybody.

That was the innovation that TIFF had.

>> Aside from making movies available to film buffs, that have not yet been released, or introducing film buffs to films from other countries, as you were doing from Africa.

What does a film festival do?

What is the purpose?

>> Great question.

A film festival does many things.

One of the most important is raise the awareness of a film-- of the people who are in it or made it.

I will always remember when Oprah Winfrey came to our festival in 2009.

She was part of a team bringing a film, Precious , by Lee Daniels to our festival.

On the red carpet, she said she was there to raise awareness for this film.

She was an executive producer on it.

It won Academy awards and became very successful.

But it was an unknown quantity until it went to film festivals.

First Sundance, then Toronto Film Festival.

All of a sudden, it blew up after that.

So first to raise awareness but also the hard commerce of the film industry.

Films cost a lot of money to make.

They have to earn that money back.

Often by selling the rights to different territories around the world.

Those sales happen at film festivals.

TIFF is where big movies are often sold for big amounts.

The buyers and sellers congregate here.

The audience is what makes it special because we show the movies to a public audience.

Very similar to the American audience... they speak English, are North Americans.

That combination of new movies in front of an audience that can tell you how it's going to play when it releases is what seals the deal for the buyers and sellers.

>> Where would you say TIFF ranks among the top film festivals of the world?

You've mentionned Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

There's Sundance and several others.

Where is TIFF in that pantheon?

>> Toronto is in the top bracket of international film festivals.

Venice is the oldest festival.

Cannes carried an air of prestige that is unassailable.

Toronto is the biggest public film festival in the world.

The size of our audience, the scale... the number of different renowned actors that we bring in, is unmatched by other festivals in the world.

We gain relevance, like every festival does, by the quality of the films we're able to launch first.

Also, who's there attending?

The key journalists from around the world who cover movies.

The key stars and directors.

Buyers and sellers of movies.

If they're all at your festival, you're doing it right.

>> Are your festivals all competitive with each other?

Or co-operative?

Are you trying to pull the rug out from under each other?

In terms of getting the hot new films?

Or do you work together?

>> It's all of that.

We're all colleagues.

If you're in the film festival game, it's because you love movies.

You're not satisfied just with what the commercial mainstream is going to give you.

You're looking for the unique experiences in movie-going from wherever you can find them.

Everyone who runs or works for a film festival is there for that reason.

So we have that in common.

Of course, we're competitive as well.

We want the premières that are going to make a difference.

In Toronto's history, to have had the world première of The Big Chill was a big deal for us.

The première of Slum Dog Millionaire .

Or many other films, like Silver Linings, Playbook, have gone onto to great success.

That means a lot.

Also, there's that moment when a film takes off.

The exciting thing about festivals is it happens in the room during the screening.

Often people will go into a film not knowing much about it.

They don't know the directors, not sure the actors in this movie.

The festival has chosen it so they hope it's good.

They sit down and watch it.

The movie begins to work on them.

You feel it scene by scene, moment by moment.

It happened this year at the festival in many cases.

I remember when we showed Moonlight andLady Bird.

These films are lifted and elevated by playing in front of an audience for the first time.

All of a sudden, everyone's talking about them.

>> When that happens at a festival, is that a guarantee that the film will become a box office hit?

Or are there times when you think that was a gang buster at our festival and a year later, it's a dud.

And it's taken out of theatres three weeks after it launched.

>> Most times, the Toronto audience has a very good feel for what's going to be popular and successful generally.

Toronto's People's Choice award has become one of the bellwethers of success in award season.

There are so many examples of films that win our Peoples Choice awards and go onto greater success.

In addition, there's the unpredictability of the marketplace.

You don't know if a film gets the right marketing strategy.

Will it be released at the right time?

All of those things play into it.

If a movie really delivers in Toronto, you can count on its success later.

>> You mentionned so many actors come to the Toronto festival.

They bring great public and media interest.

Can they also be a logistical and security nightmare for you?

Do you sometimes wish you didn't have as many big stars coming?

>> No.

Not really... [laughing] What I will say is we have an almost 47-year history.

In the early days, we were a smaller festival.

It was a looser atmosphere.

There wasn't social media.

The stars could come to our festival...do what they wanted.

There are great stories of what happened back in the day.

But the stories now are buttoned-down .

Lady Gaga came to our festival with A Star is Born ... and with her documentary the year before.

She's on a schedule and has her team around her.

In one case we had her perform as well as play a documentary that was about her.

She is just note-perfect, on time, nothing goes awry at all.

Typically when stars come now, they're here to work.

They know what they have to do and they deliver for the audience.

>> I know you won't mention the worst names but aside from Lady Gaga, who are some of the stars we would know that have struck you as being unbelievably co-operative, good with fans, patient, easy to deal with.

There must be several over the years.

>> So many.

Sometimes stars have public persona among fans, or on social media, that are at odds with how we experience them when they are here.

Joaquin Phoenix was here a couple of years ago for Joker .

He's known to be a very intense artist.

That can be intimidating.

When we meet him backstage in the green room before he goes on to present the film, he's shy.

Very soft-voiced... he is intense in how he communicates with people.

He wants a genuine connection.

>> But that's typical of a lot of actors, isn't it?

>> That they can be very shy when they ... >> Aren't performing, yes.

>> They are very different backstage.

>> That's one example.

He was really lovely.

Nicole Kidman has been at our festival many times.

What she, and many other stars like to do, is find opportunities to watch other films while they are here.

They see this as a cornucopia of great movies.

And beyond the one they're here to present-- What else should I see?

What else is good?

Keanu Reeves is another example of a star like that.

He is from Toronto.

We're proud to have him back at any point.

There are many who really embrace the festival experience.

They're not there for, or about themselves, while at the festival.

They're here to engage in what we're offering.

>> What do you think the future of movie-going will be?

More people are not going to theatres--they're watching their movies on a laptop, tv screen, tablets, even phones.

In 10 years, will we still have big movie theatres?

Will we see films on big screens with surround sound?

Or will it ultimately boil down to that physical one person inter-relation with the film?

>> The experience has to be exciting and rewarding for people to get off their couches and into a movie theatre.

We can do that in many different ways.

We are lucky that when the festival is not happening, we run cinemas year-round, like TIFF Bell Lightbox.

We know when we show 35mm film as film print projections, as opposed to the digital projection that is the norm now, in commercial movie houses, that makes a difference for people.

Not just people who remember when every movie was on 35mm.

But people in their 20s love that experience!

It's like listening to vinyl records.

It's unique and distinct and makes a difference.

Who you're there to watch the movie with makes a difference.

What happens before and after the screening.

Can you sit and have a conversation about that movie over a cocktail or a nice meal?

Can you walk home from the movie theatre and keep talking about it?

Keep that experience with you.

All of those things make it something bigger than what happens just on your laptop or tablet screen at home.

We can watch endless amounts of films at home through various streaming services.

We're all doing that!

We have done through our own services at our festival, and year round.

We want to reach people in their homes.

When the lights go down in the movie theatre and there's hundreds of people around you and you share that experience.

We saw that this year with Kenneth Branagh's film, Belfast .

The emotion is bigger.

You feel more and deeper.

You're sharing that feeling with other people around you.

When the lights go up, you see other people are crying.

They've been moved like you've been moved.

You find you're part of something bigger than yourself.

You can't beat that.

There's nothing that beats that collective experience.

>> We talked about your youth and adapting to Canada.

You've been here for... >> A long time.

>> You became a Canadian citizen fairly soon after you moved here at age 7.

You've stayed here throughout your career.

So I'm going to ask you the question that I ask all my guests on Canada Files .

What does being Canadian mean to you?

>> It's changed a lot.

When I first came to Canada, I was glad to be here.

Just amazed at the wealth, expanse of the landscape, the opportunities.

Everything just seemed big.

I would say over the last years and more recently, I'm spending a lot of thinking about what was brought to Canada that changed the lives, and in some ways, damaged the lives of the Indigenous people who were already here.

I think that all Canadians are, or need to be, thinking about.

How does Canada evolve?

Understanding the history and culture of the Indigenous original citizens of this place?

I think there is a lot of opportunity.

If we can figure that out.

Engage in true reconciliation.

I'm excited by that and to bring TIFF into that conversation.

>> What a very thoughtful answer.

Thank you for sharing your experience and insights on Canada Files.

>> My pleasure.

Thank you, Jim.

>> Thank you for watching.

We hope you'll join us again on our next episode of Canada Files .

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