TIFF 2021: Highlights from a film festival that entered the multiverse

But the shape of your festival is usually dictated by you. That wasn’t the case for some covering the Toronto International Film Festival this year, where a hybrid physical-virtual festival and a dose of bureaucracy fractured one festival into many, depending on where you were in the world.

Only this time around film after film was held back, either playing in cinemas only or restricted to certain countries. What was available where seemed to change daily in the lead up to opening night. In one territory your cup runneth over, in another you were left parched. Plenty of hustling was required to see films by other means.

One can’t blame the festival for everything; these decisions are in the hands of studios and distributors. For some titles like “Dune,” with a mammoth release on the horizon, it made sense to play it in theaters only. For smaller arthouse films or those with limited…

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