Members of the TIFF: The Market Advisory Committee join TIFF’s CEO Cameron Bailey, Chief Programming Officer Anita Lee, and Board Member Damon D’Oliviera in Cannes.Supplied
By either the grace of God, Cameron Bailey or some divine combination of those two unstoppable forces, the weather failed to rain on the Toronto International Film Festival’s parade in Cannes the other week.
After cancelling its annual French Riviera bash in 2024, TIFF returned with a glitzy vengeance to the film festival this year, hosting a beachside soirée that was one of the most coveted tickets along the Croisette – even if a drizzle of rain earlier in the day briefly threatened to dampen the event. After the clouds parted, the evening was as much an excuse for all the Canadians in town to network and nosh as it was an opportunity to put a stake in the sand for two crucial coming TIFF milestones: the 50th edition of its festival, arriving this September, and the launch of its official content marketplace, premiering in the fall of 2026.
While the anniversary and the market aren’t necessarily make-or-break moments for TIFF, they are weighted with huge significance for the future of the festival as it navigates an increasingly challenging industry environment. The rise of streamers, the general pullback of cultural support from corporate sponsors, creeping recessionary fears from consumers, a fragmented international marketplace and whatever may happen with U.S. tariffs all complicate Toronto’s ambitions to secure its status as a top-tier launchpad for films and to position itself as a premiere global destination to buy and sell movies.
“This year for us is all about understanding what the industry wants right now, because things are changing fast,” said Bailey, TIFF’s chief executive.
The market initiative was being pitched around Cannes as Toronto’s answer to that French festival’s own Marché du Film or to Berlin’s European Film Market, albeit with as much an emphasis on television series and interactive content as film. TIFF walked into Cannes swinging, given that it has already secured $23-million in support over the course of three years from Ottawa, the single-largest government source of funding the festival has received since its campaign to build its Lightbox headquarters, which opened in 2010.
In Cannes, enthusiasm regarding the market hovered around the level of cautious optimism. TIFF needs to make the initiative economical in an era of industry belt-tightening – a popular suggestion was subsidizing travel for international buyers – but organizers also need to ensure that there are enough buzzy for-sale titles making their world premiere in Toronto to make the event a can’t-miss affair.
In terms of actual news on the market front, TIFF didn’t have many details to offer Cannes attendees other than the confirmed dates of the inaugural market (Sept. 10-16, 2026); the names of eight new members to its advisory committee (including executives from Mubi, Sony Pictures Classics, Lucasfilm and BBC Studios); and the initiative’s straight-to-the-point if unimaginative name, TIFF: The Market. The official title’s stylization could prove to be an editorial sticking point come 2026, though, with TIFF lowercasing the name and eschewing the colon in its marketing materials.
Curiously, the TIFF party was slightly quieter on the organization’s other Cannes-timed announcement: the debut this fall of an International People’s Choice Award, which will be presented to the most popular non-Canadian, non-American film as voted by festival attendees.
While it is understandable that TIFF wants to up the ante when it comes to the feverish speculation that accompanies the traditional People’s Choice Award – viewed by many as an Oscars bellwether – the new award feels unnecessary, perhaps even exclusionary in a backwards way. TIFF already added a whack of slightly dubious honours to its festivities when it introduced its Tribute Awards gala fundraiser in 2019, and isolating any “international” film into what can only be seen as a lesser-than siloed category ensures that the real People’s Choice Award will remain the domain of English-language Hollywood.
But these are ultimately small quibbles if TIFF can stick the landing and deliver on both programming – will the festival be able to nab a big fall title, say Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another before Venice or Telluride? – and business.
After all, TIFF managed to hold off the rain in the notoriously weather-fickle Cannes. Perhaps it can clear the skies in Toronto for years to come, too.
