TIFF (indeed any film festival) is a sometimes uneasy tango between art and commerce. The medium is inherently expensive to produce, so the objective of many of the productions here during these 10 days is to sell a product.
At times the balance tips too far in one direction. An interesting example of this is a documentary called "Paris Not France".
A "study" of all that is Paris Hilton, the doc was originally scheduled to be shown three times during TIFF (most features have two or three screenings). It didn't interest me, so it didn't make my long list of films.
Over the weekend, there were reports that Hilton was trying to have the doc cancelled due to a dispute with the director over the content (I heard this from a friend who has scheduled it).
Interestingly enough, two of the three screenings were shelved, but the third remained. It seemed an odd result to me and I wondered if there was more to the story than was available. It struck me that there might be a strategy in place, ie reduce the supply of screenings -> increase the demand of the remaining one -> boost the potential buzz!
Two interesting e-mails appeared in my inbox this morning. Each night, TIFF issues a list of "Best Bets", which are films that have a significant number of tickets still available. On the list of films for today was PNF (it's in the Ryerson Theatre, which can seat 1200 people. One of the bigger halls in the system).
The second e-mail was a specific promotion for PNF, indicating that "Paris Hilton would be in attendance".
It will be interesting to see how the rest of this story plays out, later today.
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