The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has launched a $2 million fundraising campaign to showcase and support Black creators who identify as women, and to remove audience barriers to access.

The announcement was made on Tuesday (Nov. 8) during an event to honour the human rights and social justice legacy of Canadian civil rights activists Viola Desmond and her sister Wanda Robson, who fought against a wrongful conviction that was placed on Desmond after taking a floor seat in a Nova Scotia movie theatre in 1946.

TIFF has pledged to raise $2 million over five years as part of the festival’s Every Story fund, which launched in partnership with NBCUniversal in September 2021. Donette Chin-Loy Chang, TIFF board member, philanthropist, and community leader, kicked off the fundraising campaign with a founding gift, according to a news release.

The campaign marks TIFF’s renewed commitment to showcase and support Black creators who identify as women all year round and at the festival and to honour Black stories. The campaign will help enhance programming through collaboration with community partners for Black audiences as the festival continues to share and raise awareness of Desmond and Robson’s stories.

Additionally, TIFF announced that it will rename its largest cinema, Cinema 1, to the Viola Desmond Cinema to further commemorate her legacy. The official reveal will take place in 2023. The organization appointed two front-row seats, side by side in the cinema, dedicated to Desmond and Robson in anticipation of the official unveiling.

Cameron Bailey, TIFF CEO, said in a statement that the “communion that happens in a movie theatre belongs to everyone,” adding that by launching the Viola Desmond campaign “through our Every Story Fund, TIFF will work with donors and community partners to make our own theatres more inclusive and welcoming, and to increase our support for Black women screen creators.”

Desmond’s contributions to Canada’s civil rights movement was commemorated in 2018 when she was featured on the $10 bill. She died in 1965, roughly 45 years before her conviction was overturned by the government of Nova Scotia.

Photo by George Pimentel