Looking back at TIFF 2010: an Alliance Films VP gives her run down of this year’s fest
On Friday morning, Carrie Wolfe, the vice president of publicity and promotion for Alliance Films, was packing up her headquarters at the Intercontinental in Yorkville. After 11 years of building buzz for Oscar noms like Frieda, The Young Victoria and Eastern Promises out of the Bloor Street hotel, Alliance is moving its TIFF office down to King Street for 2011 to be closer to the Bell Lightbox. Though the 13-year film fest veteran was running on her final fumes of adrenaline, she offered to take a minute and share with us the people, performances and publicity coups that made her year at TIFF.
On Alliance’s Oscar contenders
The King’s Speech for sure—potential best picture, Colin Firth for acting, Geoffrey Rush for acting. Also Blue Valentine, the performances in that.
On managing the exponentially larger festival
You didn’t get the paparazzi and the fans and all that going on in front of all the hotels when I first worked it. I remember walking Salma Hayek from the Four Seasons to the Intercon not all that long ago when she was in for Frieda. And now you can’t do it.
On the move to King West The places we needed to go—the Four Seasons and the Hyatt—were right here. But for the press, it wasn’t the most convenient thing having to travel to the press screenings and then get back up [to Yorkville] for interviews, because schedules got so packed.
On her biggest deal We released Insidious, which sold the night of the premiere. Up until that point, no other film had sold the day of the premiere.
On the enduring appeal of Toronto Everything’s cyclical, but each of those festivals—Cannes, Venice, Toronto—have kind of found their place. Toronto is the biggest North American film festival. I haven’t seen less desire from filmmakers to bring their films here.
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