TIFF blamed for stealing the spotlight from Montreal World Film Festival

It’s a little strange to think of TIFF as doing a disservice to the Canadian film industry, as it is the biggest platform around for CanCon. But the organizers of the Montreal World Film Festival (and its apparently unfettering devotee the Gazette) certainly disagree. The two film fests shared a Tale of Two Cities-style rivalry for years, but last week TIFF unveiled its Canadian lineup on the exact same day the Montreal fest presented its lineup, prompting the Gazette to call it a “deliberate shot across the bow for the World Film Festival, an attempt to underline that Toronto does more for Quebecois cinema than Montreal does,” in a story today. So rather than chewing out the Montreal fest for having only two Quebecois films on offer, they’re mostly blaming Toronto for showing off Quebec-made selections like Jacob Tierney’s Good Neighbours and Xavier Dolan’s Les amours imaginaires.