Geoff Macnaughton Courtesy of TIFF As the Toronto Film Festival this year launches TIFF: The Market, its official bazaar for global film, TV series and immersive content, fest organizers have also rolled out an accompanying financing and co-production forum, the International Financing & Project Market (IFPM).
That’s part of a bigger plan, says Geoff Macnaughton, vp market programming and theatrical and programmer of Primetime at TIFF.
Macnaughton explains that offering two markets — one for film, series and immersive projects in development, and another for completed and varied media content — is intended to provide the wider industry with what it needs to survive and thrive in an increasingly global and multiplatform media business.
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The TV series showcase at TIFF includes Mike Flanagan’s Carrie, a reimagining for Prime Video of Stephen King’s classic novel; American Hostage, the psychological thriller series for MGM+; and Yaga, the Carrie-Anne Moss and Hudson Williams supernatural mystery series.
The IFPM, as a cornerstone of The Market, has TIFF taking over the International Financing Forum (IFF), a co-production market that for 20 years was run by Ontario Creates during TIFF’s 11-day run.
Ontario Creates remains a presenting partner of the IFPM, with Karen Thorne-Stone, president and CEO of the provincial media support agency, welcoming TIFF expanding on the success of her longtime IFF event. “Together, we look forward to creating new opportunities for Ontario and international producers to connect, finance and bring compelling projects to audiences around the world,” she says.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Macnaughton ahead of the Toronto Film Festival about becoming both a film and talent showcase and having two content markets in its quiver.
Toronto will become a market-first festival this year. How does a returning International Financing & Project Market fit into that offer to the industry?
When building the market, some of the important things for us were: How do we create a future-thinking market; another question we were asking ourselves was how do we create more opportunities for producers; the third question was how do we make sure that what we’re developing on the programming side of things is as impactful as possible? And so we kind of wrapped our brains around, if we want to support producers more, do we necessarily come in and invent something completely new? Or do we work with some partners and evolve something that’s established?
And Ontario Creates has had great success with their international financing forum in past years. So instead of building a market and having the international financing forum sit outside of it, we approached the leadership team there and discussed the idea of what it might look like if this fell under the overarching market umbrella.
Most IFPM projects are movies, but you’ve also included six TV series and five “innovation” projects. Is that a nod to an increasingly cross-platform and digital industry?
Really, the vision of the market was very much kind of a one-stop shop for global industry professionals. The other part that was really important to us was the types of projects that were presented — that it was not only a film market, but a market that welcomed those working in film series and immersive to broaden our definition of who has access, but also bring in decision-makers and creatives who are across all of those platforms.
Because among indie content makers looking for elusive financing, there’s more debate on whether a project is a film or a TV series?
Yeah, exactly. And in the project market, there will be a mix of all of those. For creators and IP holders, there are more options out there than there have been. But the businesses all have various challenges and opportunities. So the idea of someone developing a film that might make more sense as a series, or someone developing a series that may make more sense as a film, or the idea I’m developing something, but it has a life across these other elements — as an IP holder, I want to take full advantage of that.
With most IFPM projects being films, are movies still the engine driving TIFF and the industry’s long tail?
The festival is very much the welcome party phase of a film’s life and introducing it to a public audience or a press audience or an industry audience for the first time. Obviously, the films are being acquired at various stages in their development. But we’ve seen over the last years, that finished films at film festivals are not the instant acquisition they once were. Those acquisitions take time. So, instead of trying to change how the industry works, it’s more about leaning into what the industry needs. And if what the industry needs is to showcase more projects at an earlier development stage, that’s what we’re going to lean into and offer.
Where once indie film producers looked to streaming platforms for financing and acquisitions, the streamers now have their own original film pipelines. Does that leave the streamers to premiere their titles at TIFF, and indie producers to look beyond Netflix to the IFPM and your Content Market to fully finance and shop their own titles?
On the streamer side of things — and I can tell by the attendance numbers and what the data is telling us — the streamers are sending their acquisitions team in a big way. The acquisitions teams are utilizing festivals, and specifically TIFF, in different ways than maybe five years ago. But they’re picking up projects at earlier stages of development. You’re seeing them pick up content out of market screenings. The streamers have a big pipeline to fill, and Toronto being the audience-friendly festival and audience-friendly market, we continue to allow for that.
And how are indie producers adapting?
A handful of years ago, it felt like certain companies kind of took over and were the ones that were moving the needle in terms of acquisitions. And everyone else had to kind of wait until those acquisitions were done to see what remained. That’s leveled out a bit. If you look at the last few years and the types of companies that have had the biggest acquisitions out of markets, it’s a more diverse mix. Whether it’s Focus with Obsession or theatrical distributor players like Sony Pictures Classics, they’re very active. There’s a bit more of a level playing field than there was maybe just after the pandemic. That should be an encouraging sign for producers.
Besides titles, the industry is also eyeing emerging talent.
Back to the point about the streamers having their own content pipelines, they’re looking in markets for talent and future talent to tie to what they’re developing. The Focus example with Obsession is a good one. A company is not only acquiring Obsession and the global hit that it became, they’re also looking to work with a Curry Barker or [Obsession star] Inde Navarrette on their next project. That’s what a lot of theatrical or streamers or distributors are doing in Toronto, because all the markets and festivals have a plethora of emerging talent that is being showcased, not only in films with official selection, but also through our development labs and different places.
To those who inevitably ask why TIFF didn’t launch an official market 10 years ago, is your answer that the IFPM and the inaugural Content Market aren’t about legacy content? It’s more about what the industry needs now and into the future?
Building the market was a long-gestating decision. It wasn’t something we took lightly. We took our time with it because building a market is a big step for a festival. The idea of throwing two massive, large-scale global events at the exact same time is a feat. And over the last 25 and even 50 years, TIFF has had an industry infrastructure in some way. That’s included national agencies, that’s included talent development programs, that’s included a conference. Now to become an efficient market is to put our flag in the sand and say, “We are invested in growing our support for the global screen sector,” and it allows us to be nimble to industry changes. How people watch content is always going to evolve. But the thing that stays consistent is to get a film made, to get a series made, to get an immersive project off the ground, the business side of things needs to happen.
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