Don’t expect any New York stuff for the upcoming days, I’ll be blogging from Toronto. Yep, I just landed in TIFF-land. I took a little “workation” from the Big Apple and traded the madness of Fashion Week for the madness of this 11-day international film extravaganza. So far, all I can tell you is that the sky alternates between different shades of threatening gray, it’s windy as hell and Bloor Street is undergoing some major constructions. No wonder they moved most of the glitz downtown. Other than that, hotel lobbies are being polished, gift suites garnished and champagne boxes delivered.
Above, the famous Bell Lightbox finally completed after eight years and $196 million. This will be the new permanent house of the festival. It will include five cinema screens, two galleries and three restaurants. It opens this Sunday at noon with a big block party. If you’re around, they’ve announced a surprise performance by “one of Canada’s hottest global superstars”. Hmm…Drake, Bieber, Nelly?
In other news, I came across this article in the latest edition of Variety today. It’s about the ol’ film festival feud between Montreal and Toronto. I thought this was all over. Apparently not. Being from Montreal and now working from the Big Apple for a Toronto newspaper gave me a new perspective. Can we just all get along? What do you think?
I also stopped by the Tastemakers Lounge at the Intercontinental Hotel. This was the first gift suite to open at TIFF six years ago following the Hollywood trend. They were getting ready to welcome the likes of Freida Pinto and Forest Whitaker. The products given to the stars are 90% Canadians. It goes from Mattel games (stars will sign them for auction), makeup from Joe Fresh, leather goods from Jessica Jensen and vegan goodies from Rawlicious, oh and a face cream to be 40 years younger in 10 seconds. Not kidding.
So that’s it, I’m all TIFFed-up, ready to party-hop and celeb-hunt. All for you of course.
Trying my shoes on the empty red carpet today…
Pictures Marie-Joelle Parent. You can follow my TIFF adventures on Twitter.
