Lagos may go down in history as the only city in Africa to feature in the City to City programme of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) following announcement that the section has been retired for the 2017 edition of the festival.
This emerged from a press release made available to Qed.ng on Thursday.
“As we look forward to this year’s festival, we’re finding new ways to select the best of the year for our audiences and enhance the experience for our industry and media delegates,” the release quotes Director and CEO of TIFF, Piers Handling, as saying.
Unveiling 14 diverse programmes and a programming team of 22, including two new additions, the organisers revealed plan to retire the Vanguard and City to City sections and reduce the overall number of films in the 2017 lineup by 20 percent.
“As we build on the success of the festival’s past four decades, we’re challenged to balance providing a generous choice of movies for over 400,000 festival-goers with maintaining strong curatorial focus,” said Artistic Director of TIFF, Cameron Bailey.
“For 2017 we’re offering a refreshed, more tightly curated edition. In addition to trimming the lineup, we’re excited to introduce two new festival programmers to the TIFF team.”
Lagos was celebrated as the capital of African cinema with eight Nollywood films screened at the 2016 edition of TIFF.
The films screened are The Wedding Party, 93 Days, 76, Okafor’s Law, The Arbitration, Just Not Married, Oko Ashewo and Green White Green.
No other city in Africa has been given that honour in the 41-year history of the festival.
TIFF 2017 will run from September 7 to 17.
