In a surprise shakeup atop the Toronto International Film Festival, Noah Cowan has been replaced as festival co-director by veteran film programmer and broadcaster Cameron Bailey, effective Jan. 1.

Cowan is to become artistic director of Bell Lightbox, the festival’s future year-round home. His decision to abandon his presumed, eventual succession of Piers Handling as the festival’s biggest cheese has left the film industry dazed and confused.

‘He’s done the festival, been around it since he was 15 years old,’ Handling says of Cowan’s decision to bolt a high-profile, world-class film festival for Bell Lightbox.

Bell Lightbox, by contrast, promises a new challenge for someone apparently in need of one.

‘The Toronto festival is established and difficult to move in a new direction. But Bell Lightbox is a fresh new idea where he [Cowan] can make his impression,’ Handling tells Playback Daily.

The seed for Cowan moving to Bell Lightbox apparently came with Jim Hamilton — the former British Film Institute head hand-picked by Handling in 2006 to run the festival’s year-round headquarters as director of programming — who decided to return to Britain.

‘That forced me to think through who would replace him [Hamilton],’ Handling recalls.

To his surprise, Cowan submitted his own resume for the position. Cowan’s career move is also a wake-up call to the industry, according to Handling, that it should start taking Bell Lightbox and its prospects to become a world-class institution for cinema more seriously.

‘Everyone knows the festival and its profile. And people are just trying to wrap their heads around Bell Lightbox. This is a promotion into a major job. That’s in his [Cowan’s] mind, that being its artistic director is as important, if not more important, than being the head of the festival,’ Handling says.

The festival’s year-round home, set to open in 2010, will host five theaters requiring year-round programming, and educational, exhibition and film collection activities.