[Soft music in the background]
When I first started, it was so small.
It was basically a very tiny group of friends, almost.
A lot of late nights and a lot of fun moments for sure.
It was a sort of a bit of a renegade organization,
and that was amazing, as you can well imagine.
[Jazz music in background]
[Different voices] - Piers is a consummate cinephile.
- He knew so much about film, period.
- Piers, essentially, has created the modern idea of a film festival.
- He's knowledgeable, but he's also incredibly compassionate.
- If there's a word for Piers, as gentle and as kind a man as he is,
he's very bold.
[Reporter] The Festival of Festivals will begin
this Thursday evening at the University Theatre
with a gala opening.
[Piers] The philosophy of the Festival has always been to just show
the best of world cinema and have a very, very strong connection
to our own domestic, Canadian cinema.
[Michèle Maheux] Piers first arrived at the Festival from the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa.
He started out here as a programmer.
[Suzanne Weiss] When he decided that he might try
to take the job at TIFF, he had a big vision.
[Anne Mackenzie] ...and the big, big, huge thing in 1984
was the gigantic Canadian Retrospective.
[Helga Stephenson] There was very little support,
but they went ahead and they did it,
because they were great believers in Canadian filmmakers.
Up until that point, Canadian films,
frankly, were just not watched.
And what was so astonishing was that people came.
It turned out to be the blockbuster hit
of the Festival that year.
And so out of that, Perspectives Canada was born.
[Piers] I really wanted to carve out a space for them.
I thought that was really important
for them to get to meet an audience, for them to have
their films seen, bought, and sold.
- I think he must've been very nervous about the whole enterprise.
This was a very bold move for the Festival to have done at that point.
[Guy Maddin] Perspectives Canada had an enormous impact for me,
because it catapulted our films into international film festivals.
[Jennifer Baichwal] It allowed you to be with your peers
and have this kind of curated group of films
that said, "This is the best that is coming out of Canada."
[Robert Lantos] In so doing, he became a champion
of Canadian film — a seriously endangered species.
[Deepa Mehta] The whole concept of celebrating
Canadian films was, I thought, fabulous.
This is the most important thing we do.
It's the celebration of Canadian film.
We're creating space for Canadian filmmakers
and a platform for a lot of very talented people
who should be better known in Canada.
[Patricia Rozema] I think it was quite evident early on
that Piers wanted something internationally significant
to land in this place.
[Cameron Bailey] He's a very bold thinker.
Piers wants TIFF to always be a home of international cinema,
to as many languages and varieties of filmmaking as possible.
- There was very much a push.
There was a push on the Canadian side,
and then there was a push on the international side.
- There are a handful of festivals where selection actually
propels a film forward.
Getting this festival to be on that very short list
is a phenomenal accomplishment,
and Piers deserves a very large portion of the credit for it.
[Piers] I mean, it's a very rich melange of films
right across the board,
from the big Hollywood studio productions with stars
to very low-budget, esoteric, experimental films.
[Cameron Bailey] You know, the Festival had already become a success,
but it was only 10 days.
And Piers really wanted that love of film
to extend all through the year, and that's where the idea
for TIFF Bell Lightbox came from.
[Cheering]
[Wayne Clarkson] He wanted it.
He knew what it was.
He knew what it could become.
[Atom Egoyan] In a way, the establishment of [TIFF] Bell Lightbox
is a direct line from the establishment
of Perspectives Canada.
It was where our culture could find a home.
[Norman Jewison] I think Piers has created
an exceptional place in film history.
[Noah Cowan] The sophistication of the Toronto audience,
which is known worldwide, is a direct result
of Piers Handling's work.
[Mira Nair] There come these pillars that you know can rely on,
that are there, that hold you up,
and Piers is in that pillar category.
[Denys Arcand] Very often, you go to film festivals
and the people care about films, but they don't care about filmmakers.
Most filmmakers always wanted to go back to Toronto
'cause you felt appreciated.
- I don't think we'd be where we are today, as in institution,
if we hadn't had the benefit of 36 years of Piers Handling here.
- You don't have to make movies to make movies better.
- What Piers Handling has created for this city...
that was a dream that the young man had in 1971.
It took him a long time,
but it's a pretty impressive result.