Justin Cutler is the senior manager of the Toronto International Film Festival’s sales and industry office. He’s got the scoop on what generated buzz this week at the TIFF Kids International Film Festival.

It was really well received. Our industry programming team put together a fantastic program series this year. Our industry roundtables, panel discussions and networking events attracted a vast range of industry professionals, which was great, and they were bonded by the same goal of making quality content for children.

We were incredibly pleased by the reaction to the roundtables, where emerging writers and animators were able to meet and talk to industry professionals in their fields and build new connections. It was rewarding to hear from the industry veterans who were speaking in the roundtables about how excited they were to meet new independent Ontario-based producers, writers and animators.

The participation at the TIFF Kids screening library was also thriving, which is exciting for us because it means that programmers and buyers from around the world and in particular Ontario are interested in programming this content.

PB: What generated the most buzz this week?

The most positive industry response to our programming was around the creation of theatrical film in Canada, and maybe the lack of currently. So it was great to have our panel discussion that focused on this topic really dig in to how we can produce theatrical content for Canadian audiences while dealing with the major American studios and their large marketing budgets.

Some of the ideas that came out of that discussion were really interesting – the idea of working with Canadian authors to maximize visibility, or creating cross-culturally relevant material so that it can be sold in multiple territories.

PB: What are some of the take-away messages for how industry pros should shape their content?

A big theme that we heard was focusing on the character first. The hook of a story isn’t as important as the character’s motivations and points of view.

We also heard that it’s important to think of children as extremely intelligent individuals who have their own perspectives, and to treat those perspectives with lots of care.

PB: How much talk was there about transmedia?

I just left a transmedia workshop where we invited in five children, ages seven to 10 to demo games for the industry. And they were actually working with producers and game developers on how to build better games.

So that world is certainly thriving, but we’re also finding that more broadcasters are interested in developing those games at an earlier stage than they have in the past.

PB: How well did the festival live up to your expectations?

It lived up to and exceeded all my expectations. It was remarkable to see how many connections were made over the last four days. We’ve really built the industry side of the festival exponentially over the past few years, and I think we’ve finally built a sustainable community for the future.

PB: Based on the reception, are there any ideas for potential changes to next year’s festival?

We really enjoyed the roundtable format, so we’ll probably continue to build more intimate and focused workshops.