M+E Connections

Toronto Film Fest Highlights Equality in Your Entertainment

Because of the global pandemic we were unable to go to this year’s Venice Film Festival. Couldn’t go in years past because we couldn’t afford it. Nice to have a new reason.

Actually, we’ve never minded missing over the top film festivals like Venice and Cannes. But having to pass up September’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) hurt. Next to Sundance, TIFF is one of the events where they really focus on new, different and great indie filmmaker projects (plus, it reminded us we weren’t able to visit Amsterdam and IBC).

Next year? We’re there. But for this year we were more than satisfied with the virtual event because we didn’t have to fight the throngs of attendees. We were able to focus on the messages the panel/Q&A sessions participants were sharing and their anecdotes/experiences.

We got to see great flicks without cramming into the huge Ryerson Theater with a mob of folks who weren’t there to celebrate indie’s work but to be entertained … or not.

Thing you miss most are the cheers and chatter that validated your opinion … whether what you saw was good or not.

We still haven’t decided if we like the fact that TIFF showcased what judges thought were the 50 films this year rather than the firehose of 333 last year. The 50 were good, some great even, but the other creative teams will miss the key reason for submitting to film festivals … the event’s buzz that buyers need to reinforce their acquisition opinions/decisions.

As for the parade of Emmy/Oscar contenders and personalities, they can stay in Cannes and Venice because we feel film festivals should be reserved for indies, not studios.

Studios and networks focus on safe ideas like remakes, franchise extensions. Heck they probably rejected 80 percent of the story ideas that folks just “had to make,” like natural films about racial and sexual equality.

Of course, if they happen to buy one guess who becomes the leader of the shift? Yeah!

Diversity on display

Our first surprise was Concrete Cowboy, the story of a father trying to build a connection with his son in Philly. We thought it was going to be a documentary based on the book about Southern California’s Compton Cowboys but instead it followed the father/son struggle formula, with an enlightening twist: getting by in the inner city, the subtle and not so subtle challenges of being Black and the understanding of just being on a horse set people on an equal footing with people they encountered.

Turns out there’s a serious lack of movies about Black cowboys who did so much to open this country but were largely ignored or overlooked when the stories were told.

Always makes us wonder what else we don’t know about appreciating our diversity.

Can’t wait to see it again on one of our streaming services and heck who knows maybe even in a theater … someday. We’ll just have to see who snaps it up.

We’re not certain if One Night in Miami is as advertised – inspired by true events – but Regina King in her directorial debut did a fantastic job of making it feel as though it really happened or should have happened.

Difficult to imagine four iconic and different Black men coming together — Casius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, James Brown — but seeing/hearing them share their personal experiences of Black struggle was exciting/interesting.

Ms. King struck just the right tone in showing their self-doubts, self-pride of heroes we never really knew … well.

Great thing is we’ll be able to see it again on Amazon Prime and share/better-understand how much further we have to go to really be anti-racist. It’s a convincing case for an organic debate in which the stakes are personal for each of the participants and the issues no less relevant today.

While the Academy still struggles to get past its whitish male views of the world events like TIFF give the community a great platform to prove that women are equal and often superior in telling compelling visual stories.

Fresh from its win in Venice, Chloe Zhoa’s Nomadland had its premiere at TIFF. It’s an intriguing and captivating look at how an older widow finds new life on the road during the Great Depression. Frances McDormand makes you think about what happened to America the land of promise and how the American dream got lost.

It will be interesting to see how the film that was snapped up by Searchlight Pictures actually does in theaters in December.

After hearing Halle Berry talk about her directorial debut with Bruised, we’re looking forward to seeing the film on Netflix. It was interesting to hear her discuss gender parity, skills development and the potential for female creators during TIFF’s Share Her Journey.

Obviously attractive and talented, it will probably be uncomfortable to watch her struggle to succeed in something as brutal as MMA while balancing her outside chaotic life. We’re sure we’ll enjoy her triumphs (hopefully it has a happy ending) but the idea of a woman — any woman — getting beat up isn’t our idea of fun entertainment.

Rumor is Netflix dropped $20 million for the rights and that was just one of the big checks they signed at TIFF.

But since the Hastings/Sarandos team had a large number of international productions put on hold because of the pandemic they’ve been really aggressive about grabbing original features that are already “in the can.”

And with folks like Disney+, Amazon Prime and the horde of other streamers getting beat-up by shareholders to duplicate their global reach, currently 183M plus, it’s a good thing they have one thing going for them … subscriber data.

Helping indies

While TIFF — and in fact most festivals — was different this year, it did meet its “obligation” this year: highlighting indies and projects that may not have been mainstream or gotten the exposure they needed to be appreciated.

Film festivals like studios, networks, content owners, distributors miss something when they get distracted by the bright lights, big names of the tentpoles.

While a budget of $10 million to most indies we know is only a dream they still create the lion’s share of good stuff that doesn’t get the marketing push and visibility it needs to be seen and appreciated.

Time and opportunities need to be set aside for these smaller indies that either have a compelling (and well executed) story or expose/educate people that diversity and equality are important.

If you think about it, the different, even quirky, films are the reason TIFF, Telluride, Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin, Atlanta and smaller festivals around the globe exist.

For all the talent in the industry that works hard at their craft it still boils down to being in the right place at the right time with just the right message to gain “instant” stardom/acclaim.

It’s a poorly kept secret that cinemas are having “modest” turnouts and with second wave COVID-19 illnesses popping up around the globe it is painfully obvious only the brave (or foolhardy) will hesitantly put seats in seats.

Of course, the financially starved chains insist things are good and getting better if only the studios quit looking at viewer options.

While their CinemaSafe guidelines that theater chains all agreed to were designed to assure/reassure frequent and occasional moviegoers to return to their former evening out entertainment habit it isn’t quite working.

Even with nationally recognized epidemiologists and infectious disease experts endorsing a safe, enjoyable return it just isn’t working.

That’s because entertainment viewers have options and they’re ready, willing and able to use them. Seeing an opportunity – and sluggish reception – studios were finally able to revisit the time “honored” theatrical exclusivity window.

Recognizing that more than 60 percent of the public went to the cinema even before the pandemic, the shortened window enables them to put “really wanna see it” content on their streaming services earlier to grow their subscription base.

Perennial box office champion Disney — a long-time champion of the traditional theatrical window — broke ranks announcing it would bypass theaters and offer live-action Mulan to consumers in the home next month.

Nathanson said the theatrical business has been Disney’s domain for years (64 percent of all industry pre-tax earnings in 2019, according to Nathanson), and CEO Bob Chapek’s decision to alter traditional distribution models will “ripple” through the industry (including home video) for years to come. The analyst contends the country has too many movie screens operating under current market conditions.

“The number [of screens] has to fall,” he said in response to the slate of original movies moving to SVOD and other digital channels. The analyst said that trend will accelerate as studios and their media parents roll out digital distribution platforms such as HBO Max, Peacock and Disney+.

Nathanson said he believes Disney has no plans to abandon the theatrical window altogether since the studio makes money ($1.4 billion operating profit) on most of its major releases at the box office. And theatrical releases often inspire amusement park rides and consumer goods.

In some ways the pandemic did indies a favor because the major studios were and will continue to venture out cautiously because management answers to “a higher power” – shareholders.

Dearth of new content

Hard-working, talented people aren’t burdened by this overhead.

Last year more than 532 scripted projects (in U.S., 5K more globally) were produced, broadcast or streamed and this year even the reserves have been pressed into action.

Folks like Warner (HBO Max), Disney +, Paramount +, Peacock, CBS All Access, Canal, Sky, TF1, BBC, Stan, Hotstar, Foxtel, 7 Network and thousands of content owners brag about their extensive library of content even as their viewers tell them they want/expect new, unique, special content or …

The dearth of new content at theaters, networks and streamers has opened the door for indie filmmakers with micro to mid-level budget projects to explore a wide range of relationship opportunities around the globe.

Non-blockbuster projects will have increasing opportunities with the screen service providers but as TIFF and other festivals have indicated, it may not be that video story that has been gathering dust in the back of your closet.

Female cinema-goers are increasingly selective of the films they will pay to see. The same is true of the person who controls the remote or web pointer.

They don’t mind a little testosterone, but they also expect ethnic and sexual parity or move on.

With the growing acceptance of AVOD services — Tubi, Pluto, Peacock, Vudu, Roku, Hulu, YouTube, Facebook Watch, Rakuten, Youku, Tencent Video, iQiyi, and other national/regional channels — there is increasing use of revenue-sharing vs licensing.

Of course, that throws the marketing push back in the filmmakers’ lap, but no one ever said this industry was easy just fun … most of the time.

But what TIFF and the other film festivals around the globe are showing us is that diversity and parity can be interesting, fun.

What we’re proving is exactly what Pope Francis said in The Two Popes, “We need bridges, not walls.”

Looking forward to seeing more bridges at next year’s TIFF, IBC. A lot more exciting than five nights of Emmys.

Andy Marken, President, Marken Communications, is an author of more than 700 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications.