Brad Pitt in BURN AFTER READING 

Wednesday, September 3--------What is it like when two of the major film festivals on the international circuit actually overlap? A mix of competition and cooperation it seems. As the Toronto event takes a deep breath in anticipation of its big opening tomorrow and the Venice Film Festival exhales after nearly 10 days of movie madness, the next few days sees a rare overlapping of two major film showcases, 5000 miles apart.

The accent of both events are in apparent transition. Venice is  making a stronger play for the big Hollywood films that used to be more Toronto's domain. And Toronto, in its 33rd year, is starting to look like much more of an establishment figure, as it prepares to move operations into its new Bell Lightbox flagship building in 2010.

Venice was more of the grande damme (even a slightly frayed one) and Toronto more the upstart. Venice is about tradition in one of the world's most preserved landscapes, and Toronto more populist in its approach and setting in the heart of a major metropolitan city. The two fests got along, and still do. Officially, there is no rivalry between Venice and TIFF. The two dominate the fall festival season, with other fests in New York, Montreal, Vancouver and Telluride falling considerably behind them in quality of films and attending talent. "We work very closely with Venice," TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey has stated repeatedly.

Actually a good number of films come directly from Venice to Toronto. It's often considered to be a Venice-Toronto circuit. However, Toronto is starting to bristle at the Venice Film Festival's increased international press profile and its ability to attract major Hollywood and European movie stars (a free first class trip to a 5 star Venice hotel....who would not consider that).

For example, Venice opened last week with the world premiere of Burn After Reading, the new Coen Brothers comedy that will have its North American premiere at TIFF on Friday. The film stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, all of whom were in Venice to walk the red carpet. But only four of them will make it to Toronto, with Clooney not one of them. Of course, Venice is just a brief private plan ride away from his Lake Como digs.

Venice is also getting the world bows for several other major movies that will later play TIFF: Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler and Guillermo Arriaga's The Burning Plain." Marco Mueller, the prickly head of the Venice event has been publicly quoted in the press as being unhappy about the pressures from TIFF on Hollywood studios to have movies premiere in Toronto rather than on the Lido.

This rivalry has also impacted plans for both festivals to build new superstructures to house their events. TIFF is building Bell Lightbox, with hopes of having it ready for 2010. Venice is constructing a snazzy new version of the Palazzo del Cinema, which it expects will be ready by 2011. Both festivals will trumpet how state-of-the-art they are when their new facilities are up and running. But in the end, they'll have to continue to learn how to get along.

Sandy Mandelberger, Toronto FF Dailies Editor