When the Toronto International Film Festival was established in 1976 it went by another name: the Festival of Festivals. Apt, given that the founders sought to bring the best cinematic selections from film festivals around the world here for audiences to enjoy. Over the years though much has changed about the event - it's grown into one of the top four film festivals in the world - the focus remains on bringing the best films here, as well as showcasing Canadian talent.
Here are some of the festival highlights from the past 31 years: In its first year, 1976, the festival screens 140 films from 30 countries, including Jeanne Moreau's Lumiere and Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala. Four years in, the festival has gained enough recognition on the world stage that it attracts acclaimed French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard to attend a retrospective in his honour in 1980. Chariots of Fire, which premieres at the Toronto fest in 1981, goes on to become a major hit, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Lawrence Kasdan, then a burgeoning writer-director, makes a big splash with his film The Big Chill, starring Glenn Close and Kevin Kline, in 1983. It goes on to win the festival's Audience Award. In 1988, Pedra Almodovar's comedy Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown wins the Audience Award and is later nominated for an Oscar.
The festival launches its Midnight Madness program, which features edgier and subversive films. Filmmakers Gus Van Sant and the Coen Brothers bring their films, Drugstore Cowboy and Blood Simple, respectively, to the festival in 1989. Michael Moore's Roger and Me also shows that year and goes on to win the Audience Award and become one of the highest grossing documentaries of all time.
In 1992 the FIPRESCI prize for Best First Feature Film is won by a video store clerk-turned-film director Quentin Tarantino for his thrilling Reservoir Dogs. That year's festival also features films from Peter Jackson (Braindead), Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) and Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom). Among the notable selections in 1998, Francois Girard's The Red Violin, German breakout hit Run Lola Run, Elizabeth, and Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful.
1999, a banner year in terms of featuring films that would eventually receive notice, and nominations, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Screening in Toronto were: American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, Sweet and Lowdown, Boys Don't Cry, Snow Falling on Cedars and The Hurricane. Whale Rider, from New Zealand filmmaker Niki Caro, is the surprise hit of the festival in 2002, winning the Audience Award.
Its young star, Keisha Castle-Hughes, was subsequently nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. Among the other selections that year, Julie Taymor's Frida, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, Phillip Noyce's The Quiet American, and Eli Roth's Cabin Fever, which is included in the Midnight Madness programme. In 2004, TIFF invites Crash, written by Canadian Paul Haggis, to screen at the festival.
It goes on to become one of the most successful American indie films of all time and as a dark horse contender even wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Other acclaimed films being unspooled that year included Hotel Rwanda, which earned a thunderous standing ovation, Sideways, Kinsey and Ray. Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain was one of the most popular films in 2005, but also receiving good notices were Capote - largely for Philip Seymour Hoffman's incredible turn as the titular character - and Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line.
The notables from 2006 included The Last King of Scotland, The Lives of Others, and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Canadian actress Sarah Polley screens her directorial debut Away From Her to critical acclaim, and Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes also impresses. Up for 2007?
More than 300 films including Across The Universe (pictured), Michael Clayton, Rendition, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
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