In the 44th annual Toronto Film Festival, for the first time, there won't be the traditions of the formal awards ceremony. Instead, the announcements of TIFF's top audience award and jury winners will be done through social media and press statements. Reportedly, the officials of the award festival made this decision of announcing awardees through a press release and social media in order to increase the speed of communication with the winners. 

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Reason for the changes

This is also in reference to the fact that during the festival, most of the major winners are unavailable in the city to accept their trophies. The officials also believe that capturing the award winners on social media will allow them to celebrate their award with the audience. Another custom which will be broken this year is the announcement of winners of The Platform and International Federation of Film Critics competition. Usually, it used to happen on Sunday which is the final day of the festival however, this time it will be announced later on.

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Indian Cinema and TIFF

On September 10, a breakfast networking session was hosted by Information and Broadcasting Ministry on the Indian participation at the Toronto International Film Festival. The TIFF Co-Head acknowledged the “strong connection” between the Indian Cinema and TIFF. The richness of the country's cinema was also appreciated. TIFF co-head also laid focus on the various styles along with the languages, regional languages, musicals, animations, serious dramas, and comedic stories produced in India.

According to TIFF, Indian cinema is more than just Bollywood and that there is no other country that makes as many films as the Indian Cinema produces. It was in the policy of outreach, the Indian Delegation also met with the Canadian Government officials who were also informed about the recent developments undertaken by the Indian government to improve the synergy between producers to take care of the co-productions. According to TIFF co-head, there are significant attractive growth opportunities in Indian Cinema and thinks India makes “all in one destination to make films”, and that too on the global stage. 

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(With inputs from ANI)