The 50th Toronto International Film Festival kicked off today with the world premiere of John Candy: I Like Me, a documentary celebrating the late Canadian comedian.
Candy’s family walked the red carpet alongside the opening-night film’s executive producer Ryan Reynolds and director Colin Hanks.
The documentary features the Toronto-raised actor’s life on and off camera, with exclusive home videos, family interviews and collaborators’ recollections to showcase the legacy of a career spanning two decades.
Candy — who starred in hit comedies like Spaceballs, The Great Outdoors and Planes, Trains and Automobiles — died in 1994 at the age of 43, after suffering a heart attack while filming what would be one of his final motion pictures, Wagon’s East.
“He just left in his wake this kind of a kindness and a joy,” Reynolds said, seated alongside Hanks and Candy’s children, Jennifer and Christopher Candy, at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
“John had a way about him that brought a movie together, and still does to this day,” he said.
Christopher Candy told reporters the documentary is a “very beautiful goodbye to our dad,” explaining that his family was finally ready to share more about their father’s life.
“This is, you know, one last great John Candy film that [he] gets to star in.”
The film includes tributes and interviews from Candy’s friends and co-stars, including fellow Canadians Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short and Eugene Levy, as well as Steve Martin, Macaulay Culkin and the director’s own father, actor Tom Hanks.
A new trailer for the film debuted on both Prime Video and Reynolds’s YouTube channels hours before the premiere at Roy Thomson Hall at 8 p.m. ET.
WATCH | The trailer for John Candy: I Like Me:
Prime Minister Mark Carney was also at opening night, calling TIFF “a testament to part of what makes Canada unique.”
Carney took the stage to applause ahead of the screening of the Candy film. He joked he was there to “take credit” for the Trudeau government’s financial commitments to TIFF, before saying he was there to reinforce those commitments.
Last year, the Liberal government announced it was investing $23 million in TIFF’s content market initiative.
Carney also went on to pay tribute to Candy, saying the film exemplified important Canadian values like tolerance, generosity and humility.
He said that in “a more dangerous, divided and intolerant world,” when Canadians feel threatened, they channel their inner John Candy.
TIFF takes to the street
The festival officially kicked off at 4 p.m. ET with the unveiling of TIFF’s own star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, right outside the TIFF Lightbox.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow was on hand for the big reveal, flanked by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and Walk of Fame CEO Jeffrey Latimer.
It also served as the opening of TIFF’s Festival Street, now in its 10th year. King Street West will be turned into a pedestrian-only thoroughfare from Thursday until Sunday and host a number of outdoor events.
That’s where movie buffs will find the Criterion Mobile Closet, which is making its Canadian debut at TIFF this weekend.
The Criterion Collection, a home video distribution company celebrating cinema classics, has gained attention on social media with Hollywood stars stepping into its retrofitted white delivery van stocked with some 1,700 films.
Festivalgoers can peruse the closet for their favourite films and discuss their love of cinema, while creating content for social media.
For those who can’t take in any of the big premieres, there will be a chance to join the festival fun with a number of outdoor classic movie screenings at David Pecaut Square, outside Metro Hall, over the course of TIFF.
The rain-or-shine events get underway Thursday night at 10 p.m. ET with a 40th-anniversary showing of The Goonies.
The 50th Toronto International Film Festival begins this week. CBC’s Naama Weingarten spoke to businesses in the downtown core
about how they are preparing for the influx of crowds ahead of the festival.
Star-studded premieres set to begin
Over the next 11 days, Toronto will welcome a wave of Hollywood heavyweights, with Angelina Jolie, Keanu Reeves and Dwayne Johnson among the A-listers set to attend.
Festival workers splashed through puddles, many of them dressed in yellow plastic raincoats, as they put finishing touches on the red carpets outside various theatres surrounding TIFF’s headquarters.
The dreary weather didn’t deter some cinephiles who waited outside the Lightbox to grab tickets to Erupcja, an edgy world premiere starring U.K. pop singer Charli XCX that nobody seemed able to pronounce with any certainty. The indie film was set to screen that afternoon.
Ben Jeffries was one of the first in the rush line. He hoped that by showing up six hours early, he might get one of the last seats inside the cinema.
“I’m a huge fan of Charli,” he said. “And I have been dying to commit myself to one movie and meet new people. I’m happy to be standing around in the middle of the festival. I feel like I’m a part of it.”
This year’s milestone edition of TIFF will feature 291 films from around the world, with Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein and Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine among the buzziest features.
Gaza, Israel documentaries set to screen
Also in this year’s lineup are some politically charged films, including Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, about a Palestinian photojournalist who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in April, as well as The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, which follows a retired Israeli soldier who saved his family during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.
Organizers briefly pulled the latter from the festival lineup last month, drawing heavy criticism from a number of organizations and officials.
They said the film, from Canadian director Barry Avrich, didn’t meet certain requirements around security concerns and “legal clearance of all footage.”
But days later, Avrich and TIFF CEO Bailey said they reached a resolution after hearing “pain and frustration” from the public.
The festival runs through Sept. 14, when it closes with the People’s Choice Awards, which are often seen as an early predictor of Oscar success.
The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 4 to Sept. 14. CBC’s Jackson Weaver highlights three films to watch.
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