Hefty Seminar Schedule on Tap in Toronto

The Toronto Film Festival, which will present a mind (and ass) numbing program of nearly 400 films over the next 9 days, is also presenting a hefty schedule of Information Seminars on a wide array of topics, drawing on the expertise of dozen of professionals assembled here.

From the urgency of film preservation to the challenges of the new media, the Festival covers the one hundred plus years of cinema, while adding to the international discourse of how to preserve our cinema heritage as we head into new areas of production and distribution that will radically change the industry and aesthetic of film. FilmFestivals.com will bring you in depth coverage of these events in the days to come, but here is a look at the topics that will be on the minds of many festival participants in the days to come.

Fade to Black: The Crisis of Film Preservation looks at the race against time as film archivists attempt to recover and restore thousands of disintegrating filmed records of our times, in a climate of industry indifference and shrinking budgets. Panelists include Ian Wilson, National Archivist of Canada, Lisa De Wilde, President of Astral Television Networks, whose pay television channels are sponsoring the restoration and exhibition of film classics, film critics Robert Daudelin and Jonathan Rosenbaum, and Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema (I 've Heard The Mermaids Singing) whose newest short film This Might Be Good has its world premiere at the Festival.

Sifting out the trends in international cinema is the subject of two highly anticipated panels. The Face of European Cinema Today, presented by European Film Promotion, a pan-European promotional organization, brings together 10 European directors with films in the Festival, who discuss the challenge of making films in their native countries that speak to their local populations and still have worldwide resonance. Participating filmmakers include Asia Argento from (Italy, Scarlet Diva), Florian Flicker (Austria, Holdup), Costas Kapakas (Greece, Peppermint), Romuald Karmakar (Germany, Manila), Baltasar Kormakur (Iceland, 'Tis Pity She's A Whore), Laura Mana (Spain, Compassionate Sex), Hans Petter Moland (Norway, Aberdeen), Dominik Moll (France, Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien), Pierre-Paul Renders (Belgium, Thomas Est Amoureux) and Jamie Thraves (UK, The Low Down).

First Voices: Aboriginal Women Storytellers brings together a group of Canadian native artists who use the contemporary formats of film, video and digital media to give voice to the tales of their ancient peoples. Participants include Tantoo Cardinal, Shirley Cheechoo, Alanis Obomsawin and Loretta Good.

Dissecting a success story is a very telling way to examine what elements of a film have worked to make it a success in its native country and still speak to a worldwide audience. Jeremy Podewska's The Five Senses debuted in the Director's Fortnight at Cannes in 1999 and went on to win numerous Genie Awards (the Canadian Oscar). On hand to discuss the marketing strategies that made this difficult multi-character film work in its native Canada and in Europe are Charlotte Mickie of Canadian powerhouse distributor Alliance-Atlantis Motion Pictures, Regine Schmid of German arthouse distribution company TiMe and US distributor Peter Kalmbach of USA Films.

With the implications of the new media weighing heavily on all aspects of the film industry, the Festival attempts to bring some clarity to the often cloudy crystal ball of where the digital revolution will lead in a series of informative panels.

With four US-based theater chains declaring bankruptcy this summer, the discussion of the future of film exhibition is particularly timely. Will the public continue its support of the theatrical filmgoing experience as we see the dawn of the age where films can be easily transmitted directly into computers and television sets via the Internet? Will the theatrical experience lose favor especially among the young, who have become used to instant and mobile access to filmed entertainment? Attempting to sort through these questions is Anthony Cianciotta, Senior VP of Acquistions for theatrical giant Cineplex Odeon, Steven Friedlander, the Executive VP of arthouse distributor Fine Line Features, Tom Brugeggemann, the VP for Sundance Film Centers, a new chain of arthouse cinemas devoted to an eclectic mix of American and international film fare and "International Exhibitor of the Year" Joseph Peixoto, the President of United Cinemas International, one of the world's largest exhibitiors with nearly one thousand screens in 13 countries worldwide.

Kinetic Potential: Remapping Film takes on the digitial revolution in production that has begun to make sophisticated filmmaking techniques affordable and accessible to a wider range of storytellers. Discussing the potentials for new expression in the new medium of digitial filmmaking are Vincenzo Natali, a digital filmmaker whose debut feature Cube was an international hit, Ana Serrano, the director of MediaLinx h@bitat, the Canadian Film Centre's new media training and development thinktank, and Rolfe Swinton, the co-founder of Article 27, which is buying exclusive rights to hundreds of independent and art films to eventually "broadcast" to a worldwide public via the Internet.

Which brings us to the hot topic of the moment....the potentials of the Internet as a new exhibition medium that effectively erases the middle man between filmmaker and filmgoer. With the recent announcements of consolidation in the industry and the early demise of the high profile POP.COM (despite backing of such industry heavyweights as Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard), the future of the Internet looks abit less rosy than it did even a few months ago. However, the impact will undoubtedly be felt eventually and forecasting what that will mean is a distinguished panel including Kevin Wendle, founder of web portal site IFILM, Beki Probst, the director of the Berlin Film Market, film critic and festival programmer Gerald Peary, and Jeffrey Wells, a journalist specializing in the new media and the film industry.

No doubt these panels will leave attendees with more questions than answers, more "problems" than solutions. However, the Festival understands that its role is not simply to offer a Chinese menu of film goodies but to stimulate discussion and thinking about where we have come from and where we are headed as the potentials of technology define a new century.

Sandy Mandelberger