A look back at 50 years of foibles, gaffes and triumphs at TIFF

Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley hold up a Montreal Canadiens hockey shirt as they promote the film "A Dangerous Method" at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sept. 10, 2011. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — The Toronto International Film Festival turns 50 this year, marking a half-century of triumphs, gaffes and a fair number of famous foibles. Here’s a look at the festival’s evolution and the big events that helped shaped it.

1976 — TIFF debuts as the Festival of Festivals, launched by the late Bill Marshall, late Dusty Cohl and Henk Van der Kolk to showcase the best films from festivals around the world. The fledgling affair is largely regarded as a local event and unspools in October, when organizers promise visitors a glorious late summer. It snows. They discuss the cost of renting snowblowers. Future fests move to September.

1978 — Publicity boss Helga Stephenson is punched in the shoulder as a mob tries to enter an overflowing screening for “In Praise of Older Women.” A dispute with censors over the film’s sexual content land programmers in the papers and secure the best publicity it could hope for. Rebel staffers sneak an uncut version onto the screen. Meanwhile, festival judge Robbie Robertson reportedly orders a hotel’s entire stash of Dom Pérignon within an hour of arriving.

1983 — An unassuming film called “The Big Chill” comes to TIFF with its photogenic cast of up-and-comers including Glenn Close and William Hurt, igniting audiences before going on to collect multiple Oscar nominations. The surprise hit puts TIFF on the map and sets the stage for future red carpet spectacles as Hollywood A-listers take note.

1990 — Now festival director, Stephenson convinces “White Hunter Black Heart” star and director Clint Eastwood to visit her dying mother in hospital. “He was her favourite actor. So after the presentation, we walked across the street from the Elgin (Theatre) and into the hospital where he was whisked to her room.”

1991 — A TIFF delivery van containing that day’s stash of film prints is stolen. Programmers scramble to find other flicks to screen. “Of course, the studios freaked out,” former festival CEO Piers Handling recalled on TIFF’s 40th. The van is recovered several days later behind a deli, with all the prints accounted for.

1994 – The festival is renamed the Toronto International Film Festival. Handling, programming director since 1987, is named festival director and CEO.

2001 — Red carpets, press conferences and parties are cancelled when word spreads of hijacked planes slamming into New York’s World Trade Center. Stranded film stars gather around televisions stunned by horrific images of carnage and chaos. Canuck filmmakers, including producer Robert Lantos, open their homes to U.S. and European colleagues unable to immediately find a way home. Handling goes into “crisis mode” and wonders whether to cancel the entire festival, settling on something in between: “We basically took all the glitz and glamour out of the festival and just concentrated on running the films.”

2006 — The Sutton Hotel is slapped with a $600 fine for indoor smoking after Sean Penn lights up during a press conference for “All The King’s Men.” That same year, Sacha Baron Cohen shows up at the midnight premiere of “Borat” in a donkey cart pulled by women dressed as peasants. At the screening, the projector breaks down and spectator Michael Moore attempts to fix the problem, to no avail.

2007 — Penn refrains from smoking when he returns to promote “Into The Wild,” but sucks on ice cubes while a cop stands guard – staff say this is for crowd control. Nevertheless, Penn is punchy and asks photographers to stop shooting “because I can’t think,” and silences crowd hubbub with: “What’s everybody else talking about? Or are you just interrupting?” Meanwhile, Jason Reitman’s “Juno” is a sensation and launches 20-year-old star Elliot Page, also in town with Bruce McDonald’s “The Tracey Fragments,” into stardom. Off the circuit, “Cassandra’s Dream” star Colin Farrell makes headlines for taking a homeless man on a shopping spree for clothes and waterproof gear and handing him a wad of cash.

2009 — Naomi Klein, Jane Fonda and Viggo Mortensen join a local protest against TIFF’s decision to spotlight films from Tel Aviv, saying it excludes Palestinian voices. Their petition is quickly denounced by a celeb-stacked counter-statement from festival friends including Israel-sympathetic stars Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jerry Seinfeld.

2010 — A rumour spreads that bed bugs have infiltrated Scotiabank Theatre, a multiplex hosting many TIFF screenings. Theatre owner Cineplex Entertainment denies the claims, but an itchy panic spreads online.

2011 — Keira Knightley risks rankling a Toronto audience by striding into a press conference with a Montreal Canadiens jersey slung across her shoulders. The British star says she did so at the bidding of her “Dangerous Method” co-star Viggo Mortensen, a big Habs fan. Their Toronto-bred director David Cronenberg deems the stunt “perverse.”

2015 — TIFF marks its 40th milestone with a new section for foreign TV series and a juried competitive section for “artistically ambitious cinema.”

2016 — Moviegoers get an unexpected workout when the Scotiabank Theatre’s towering escalators break down for days. The multiplex urges patrons to avoid the elevators and climb all 75 steps, leaving journalists and Hollywood execs huffing and puffing their way into cinemas. Things go from bad to worse when air conditioning in one of the Scotiabank cinemas fails on Day 1 and the audience sweats through Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle.”

2017 – Handling announces his impending retirement and months later the organization reveals a new two-headed leadership structure, with artistic director Cameron Bailey in the newly created position of “artistic director and co-head.”

2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic cancels red carpets, parties and rush lines as infection fears force most screenings and events online or outdoors, with drive-in show emerging as the hot ticket. A ban on non-essential travel also keeps global celebs away, although Kate Winslet and Anthony Hopkins appear virtually for a drastically slimmed-down slate of more than 50 titles.

2021 – Shortly after a second COVID-curbed hybrid edition, Bailey ascends to the role of TIFF CEO.

2022 – Hype over a return to form after two years of pandemic restrictions is blunted by the death of Queen Elizabeth II on opening day. Among the dignitaries at a kickoff ceremony, Toronto Mayor John Tory deems it “a big and sad day in history.” Two festival venues — the Royal Alexandra Theatre and the Princess of Wales Theatre — dim their marquee lights in tribute.

2023 – Dual strikes by Hollywood unions for writers and actors cast a pall over the 48th edition and leave most red carpets bereft of big U.S. stars. Mere blocks from Festival Street, “Severance” star Patricia Arquette joins dozens of actors and writers outside Amazon and Apple’s Canadian headquarters to press the producers’ alliance for job protections, better compensation and guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence.

2025 – Fanfare over TIFF’s 50th anniversary is overshadowed early on by controversy over its handling of a Canadian documentary about the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. After a public outcry, officials insist Barry Avrich’s “The Road Between Us” is an official entry, reversing an earlier decision to disinvite it over security concerns and issues with the “legal clearance of all footage.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2025.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press