Welcome to Connected Intelligence, a podcast about the building blocks that bring complex ideas to life. I'm your host Sonia Senic. Today we chat with Cameron Bailey, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival. Cameron shapes the vision of one of Canada's Premier cultural brands, responsible for the world's largest public film festival. A champion of diverse voices, he has transformed TIFF into a global hub. Cameron talks to us about the evolution of technology in film, creating magical moments with an audience, and how the audience is us. We recorded this at the TIFF Lightbox. Please enjoy Cameron Bailey.
Cameron Bailey welcome to the podcast.
Thank you and thank you so much for doing this.
Thank you for having me.
So you are a transformative leader in the Canadian cultural landscape. I want to go back to the University of Western Ontario where you started working on the school newspaper and began film critique. How did that start?
It started with me walking onto campus as the first person in my family to go to university. I had written a lot in high school. At Western, I walked into The Gazette and they sent me to review concerts. I started taking film courses and reviewing films. That opened my mind to cinema beyond entertainment, and here we are.
So you've been at TIFF for over 25 years. Could you have imagined what the festival became? Take us back to when you got your first role.
I started in 1990 as a freelance programmer during the Festival of Festivals. I helped select Canadian films. After five years, I went to Africa with Piers Handling and discovered African cinema, starting Planet Africa in 1995. I left after 1997 and came back in the mid-2000s. I learned to understand how films work on audiences, beyond my own tastes. That was a big learning curve.
When thinking about the relationship with the audience, have you ever been surprised by a reaction that was 180 degrees different?
Not 180 degrees, but films often play bigger emotionally. I saw 12 Years a Slave alone and then with 1800 people at the Princess of Wales. The collective experience was thunderous applause and then silence as people processed. That amplification happens often, whether comedy, suspense, or horror. It's gratifying and sometimes surprising.
Over your 25 plus years, what's been your favorite role?
It's hard to say. My current role as CEO gives enormous reach but also great responsibility. As a programmer, especially internationally, I loved traveling to places like Johannesburg, Kolkata, and Manila, tracking down filmmakers. It felt like being an international man of mystery. But you can't do that forever.
In your travels and work attracting diverse audiences, how do you characterize the magic of the shared movie experience? What common thread have you seen?
I believe we are social animals. Art pulls down barriers. Movies do that well: the lights go down, you're in the dark, the giant screen and sound open up social connection. In Toronto, half the people were born outside Canada, we speak 200 languages. That diversity makes the shared experience unique and incredible.
As CEO of a year-round organization with real estate and a massive festival, how do you lead your team and make decisions? What's the interplay?
It starts with keeping our team connected to the impact we have. For example, we had a sing-along screening of Encanto with green glow sticks. We want staff to witness that joy. Then when looking at budgets, they remember why we do this. We also talk about hunting and farming: hunting is the intense work towards the 11-day festival; farming is the year-round planning. You can't confuse the two.
Do you have conversations about intentionally switching between hunting and farming? How do you build year-over-year goals?
We have annual plans, budgets, KPIs, strategic plans that used to be five-year, now three-year. We try to plan but expect surprises like COVID, actors' strikes. We keep teams motivated through the rhythm of the year, the peak in September, and anticipation of whatever comes our way.
TIFF has launched huge films like Slumdog Millionaire, Silver Linings Playbook. What did it feel like to be on the inside of those moments?
