Can TIFF navigate a global film industry facing a ‘turning point’?

TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey speaks at a press event in Toronto on Aug. 19. The success of this year’s festival feels more weighted with consequence than ever before. Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press

If it feels as if the Toronto International Film Festival is on the precipice of existential change, that’s partly because the entire industry is.

This past Monday, smack in the middle of the Venice and Telluride film festivals and three days before TIFF opens its 51st edition, more than 200 film-sector heavyweights from around the world – TIFF chief executive Cameron Bailey among them – gathered in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, for the inaugural Lumière Summit.