By Jamie Bradburn

With this year’s Toronto International Film Festival kicking into high gear, it seems appropriate to look back to the advertising for its tenth edition, back in the days when it was known as the Festival of Festivals.
Besides today’s ad, Toronto Life also featured an article on the festival, highlighting its first decade and offering a preview of that year’s fare. The “Tribute to” event was scratched for 1985, after the debacle surrounding the previous year’s salute to Warren Beatty (cost overruns due to a switch in hotels from the Sutton Place to the Four Seasons and footing the bill to jet Jack Nicholson in, plus Beatty’s decision to sit in the audience for most of the night instead of onstage with Siskel and Ebert). New features included a series of pre-festival free screenings in High Park and Open Vault, a series of restored silent films with live musical accompaniment.
The magazine also offered their picks and pans:
What to See: Joshua Then and Now (the opening night gala), La Historia Oficial, The Devil’s Playground, Colonel Redl, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Funeral and a restored version of Way Down East.
What to Avoid: Dim Sum (“You can tell it’s authentic because people talk very slowly and never say anything very interesting”) and Mishima (“More a graduate seminar than a movie”).
Source: Toronto Life, September 1985