On Friday afternoon, I was lucky enough to enjoy one of the last guided tours of TIFF Bell Lightbox before the job site is closed for a last big push toward the grand opening on September 12. Designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB), the Toronto International Film Festival’s soon-to-be-christened new home is an architectural riff on the Russian nesting doll, a series of boxes within boxes.
TIFF Bell Lightbox is the last of Toronto’s cultural renaissance projects to be completed and the building is the final piece of what’s being called the John Street cultural corridor, a stretch that includes Rogers Centre, CBC headquarters, Mirvish row (along King Street east from John), the NFB headquarters, CTV and finally OCAD and the AGO.
Lightbox will be inaugurated with the 2010 edition of TIFF, the 35th annual installment. The festival’s new home on the north-west corner of King and John Streets features a three-storey atrium, five cinemas ranging in size from 80-seats to 550-seats, two galleries, two restaurants and a film library, in addition to TIFF’s offices. The sixth storey terrace, above, has a spectacular view of the CN Tower.
The site is still a bit of a mess, only hinting at what promises to be a huge cultural resource for the city and the country. Our tour guide, David Carey (TIFF’s Senior Manager of Public Affairs, above centre) noted that major film exhibitions on Alfred Hitchock, Stanley Kubrick and Pixar are presently touring the globe, exhibits that “bypassed Canada in the past because there wasn’t a film-based facility that could take them on. Now we’ll have one.”
TIFF Bell Lightbox opens with a celebration of The Essential 100, the top hundred films of all time compiled through polls of the public, TIFF curators and film critics. “The list contains everything from Michael Snow to Ridley Scott, from popcorn to high art,” says Carey. The cinemas and accompanying exhibition will be open all night long as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, October 2.
Then in November, TIFF Bell Lightbox hosts its first blockbuster, a celebration of the work of filmmaker Tim Burton that broke attendance records at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which curated the exhibit.
“I saw the Burton show in New York and it’s fantastic,” says Carey. “It was the MOMA’s most popular show of the last decade attracting 800,000 visitors in six months. We know that we’re not the MOMA but we’re hoping that it’s going to be a big deal for the city.”
Based on last week’s tour of the Lightbox, there is still a lot of work to be done before the venue is ready for its close-up but the TIFF team is confident that the fixtures and fittings will be camera-ready come September 12. King Street’s gain, will be Yorkville’s loss; the festival, which used to set Bloor and Cumberland Streets ablaze with flashbulbs and buzz, will henceforth light up the theatres, hotels and restaurants fanning out around the Lightbox. 2010 promises to be a pivotal year in the festival’s history.
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