How TIFF Became a Dumping Ground for Vanity Projects

In the fall of 1976, a mysterious mass illness suddenly struck the city of Los Angeles—or at least that was the only plausible reason in the mind of Canada’s secretary of state. How else to explain why not a single Hollywood studio distributor had sent a film to Toronto’s first international film festival, with executives telegramming him directly to say they would not be in attendance? Studios cited arcane distribution rules as the excuse for their non-participation, but Canadians—reliably among Hollywood’s biggest customers—felt deliberately snubbed.