In defence of the WFF

In last week's issue of the Mirror, reader Richard Archambault wanted to know what Matthew Hays's perennial bitching about the Montreal World Film Festival was about ["Why gripe?" [e]Mail]. Hays pretends that it's because the festival's administration is not "open to criticism."

Huh? Is the festival somehow censoring Hays? I've attended the WFF for many years and have been reading the Mirror for almost as long. In all this time, I can't recall a single concrete (positive) suggestion from Hays, just vague grumbling that seems to change from year to year (not enough stars, not enough parties... what does that have to do with cinephiles?). If Hays would ever make a clear suggestion about something, perhaps we could judge it on its merits. This being unlikely, let me deconstruct Hays' griping for your benefit.

1. Hays would like the Montreal festival to be more like Toronto's (i.e. more English-language films) because he clearly doesn't understand French very well (just check out what he reviews).

2. Critics like to bitch. They like to tell film directors how to make films and festival directors how to run festivals. The film directors are mostly in Hollywood or Paris or Berlin and have never heard of Matthew Hays. The director of the Montreal Festival is in Montreal and appears to ignore Hays just as completely. Not surprising since Hays has never run a festival and hasn't the faintest idea what is actually involved in getting a particular film to be shown in a festival.

3. For a film critic, Hays appears to spend a lot more energy reviewing the festival's parties (he drops names and clearly hates the ones he doesn't get invited to) than its films. Browse through the festival's program and you'll wonder why he always seems to miss the most interesting ones. Oh yes, of course--he has trouble with French subtitles.

4. In answering Mr. Archambault, Hays repeats the hoary old complaint that Montreal "loses" some films to Toronto. So what? Montreal shows many films that Toronto doesn't (most of the French films, naturally) and vice versa. The Toronto festival will always be a much stronger showcase for American films. Toronto is the third largest market for American films after New York and Los Angeles. The Toronto Festival has a much bigger budget and it is located in a completely English-speaking city. Only Sundance attracts more American films than Toronto and this in turn attracts the English-speaking critics (not to mention all the North American journalists who come to Toronto on junkets arranged by the studios). The Montreal festival long ago realized that it couldn't compete with Toronto on this basis and decided instead to turn its attention instead to truly "foreign" cinemas. It was one of the first showcases in the world for "Fifth Generation" Chinese directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, and it pretty much introduced Iranian cinema to Canada (there were a dozen Iranian films at this year's festival). Montreal always has a very strong representation of films from Latin America (seven features from Brazil, this year, nine from Argentina etc.), but you'd have to read the French papers to know it, even though most of the Latin American films shown here came with English subtitles. Maybe that's why Hays keeps bitching so much: he just can't read subtitles!

--David DeMille