Toronto Festival Tower and tiff Bell Lightbox | 156.96m | 42s | Daniels | KPMB

The massing over the surrounding buildings is huge. If done well it should be quite impressive along King Street.
 
Hey Solaris, assuming you took those pictures on Monday, say, around 4-5ish, I saw you! I was wondering why someone, with a fairly pro camera, was shuttering away at Lightbox.:)
 
Filip ... naaa, that's not me, for 3 reasons:

  1. I am a total amateur
  2. my camera is only a P+S SD950 (sorry, no semi-pro camera) :(
  3. my shots were from Sunday Feb 15th

nice of you to notice though :p
 
Filip said:
Hey Solaris, assuming you took those pictures on Monday, say, around 4-5ish, I saw you! I was wondering why someone, with a fairly pro camera, was shuttering away at Lightbox.:)
Click to expand...

Solaris said:
Filip ... naaa, that's not me, for 3 reasons:

  1. I am a total amateur
  2. my camera is only a P+S SD950 (sorry, no semi-pro camera) :(
  3. my shots were from Sunday Feb 15th

nice of you to notice though :p
Click to expand...

What we can deduce from all this is that someone out there is taking (presumably) fairly pro quality pictures of buildings, and is not sharing them on UT. Apparently, we still have some work to do recruiting-wise.
 
Filip said:
Hey Solaris, assuming you took those pictures on Monday, say, around 4-5ish, I saw you! I was wondering why someone, with a fairly pro camera, was shuttering away at Lightbox.:)
Click to expand...

I saw someone doing the same but not monday though. Wednesday? Might have been tuesday.
 
When I see someone taking pictures like that I ask them if they've heard about UT. I've never met someone from the forum like that though I sometimes wonder if anyone has joined because of me talking to them.
 
So how often will movies actually be shown here? Will the "Bell Lightbox" become a regular theater or will it only be open during the festival?
 
It will be open all the time as a cinema, but not like those run by AMC, etc.
 
I'm thinking it will be more like Uptown was. I wouldn't expect big action blockbuster movies to be played though.
 
I expect Cinemateque Ontario would move in there too
 
There will be 5 cinemas in the complex. Their sizes will be approximately 600, 400, 200, 100, and 50 seats.

Just to be comprehensive I'll start by stating the obvious about what will be happening at the centre, and then drill down...

In September, you've got this li'l thing called TIFF. In late April they run a kids version called Sprockets. Throughout the year Cinematheque Ontario holds about a dozen weekly screenings at the AGO's Jackman Hall. Sunday mornings during the year, 2 separate Reel Talk programmes present 7 movies each before their general release, to an audience that can't wait for TIFF or the general release, and who are willing to get up ridiculously early on a Sunday.

All of that is going into the Bell Lightbox automatically, other than possibly one of the two Reel Talk programmes. The one that is held at the Sheppard Grande may remain at that northern outpost.

Cinematheque screenings will increase substantially in the new home base, but won't be able to fill the place during non-TIFF and non-Sprockets times, so the TIFF Group is extending invitations to other film festivals that take place throughout the city throughout the year. What terms the other festivals have been offered is not known yet, and none of the other festivals have publicly announced their move into the Bell Lightbox yet, but TIFFg dearly hopes that those festivals will flood in.

Again not that any of these festivals have said they'll move, but here are other film fests currently in the city that TIFFg might like to host, running chronologically throughout the year starting from now:

end of Feb/early March: Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival
end of Feb/early March: World of Comedy Film Festival
late March: Canadian Film Fest
late March: Female Eye Film Festival
end of March/early April: CineFranco
early April: Images Fesitval Film + Video | New Media | Installation
mid-April: ReelWorld Film Festival focusing on people of colour
(mid-April: Sprockets of course)
late April: Toronto Jewish Film Festival
end of April/early May: HotDocs, Toronto's second biggest film fest
mid-May: Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Toronto's third largest
mid-May: Toronto International Deaf Film and Arts Festival
early June: Luminato film events
mid-June: Toronto Italian Film Festival
mid-June: CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival
mid-June: NXNE film events
(early September: TIFF of course)
late Sept/early Oct: Toronto Palestine Film Festival
mid-October: imagineNATIVE (Indigenous Peoples) Film + Media Arts Festival
mid-October: Planet in Focus international environmental film & video festival
late October: Toronto AfterDark Film Festival
early November: Toronto International Latin Film Festival
mid-November: Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival
mid-November: Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival
mid-November: Reel Awareness Human Rights Film Festival
late November: Eh!U European Film Festival
late November: One Minute Film and Video Festival
late November: aluCine Toronto (short film & video) Latin Media Festival

1 night monthly: DocSoup screenings, run by HotDocs

You might also be surprised to hear that there are still several more film festivals that take place here than mentioned above, but they are small enough, or tied to certain places like U of T, or are intermittent, like the Bicycle Film Festival, the Fantasy Worldwide Film Festival, or various other ethnic film festivals, that I doubt they'll end up inside the Lightbox. They are worth noting just to understand how many of these festivals play in Toronto throughout the year.

42
 
In a way I kind of hope that not all of these festivals migrate to TIFF, because I think they've been a real boon to maintaining some of the older stock of cinemas, like Bloor and the Royal. It would be a shame if the gain of TIFF meant the loss of all the older, independent stock.
 
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