Toronto Film Festival lead sponsor Bell cut ties with the event after 28 years

Bell Canada is ending its long-standing partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival. The telecommunications companyhas been sponsoring the film festival since 1995.

The partnership will end with the 48th season of the Toronto International Film Festival. In a statement to Variety, the company said, ''Bell has had a terrific partnership with TIFF for the past 28 years."

"We’re proud of our partnership to help make TIFF a leading global destination for film and to support Canadian content and talent on the world stage."

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The statement continued, "Earlier this year, we decided that the end of 2023 would be the right time to step back from our partnership with TIFF and opted not to renew our sponsorship in order to invest in other opportunities that are core to our business. We are confident TIFF will continue to develop and showcase the world’s leading content to inform, educate and entertain the best audience in film. We’re grateful to have been a part of it all."

The 28 years of financial ties came to an end at a time when the industry was struggling to recover from the pandemic lockdown. And this year, the festival is going to be impacted by the ongoing Hollywood strikes. In the wake of the ongoing actors' and writers'strike, members are not allowed to take part in any promotional event for any film. Following the same, many big stars are going to skip the film festival.Despite the strike, the TIFF CEO assured earlier this year that the festival is in great shape.

The CEO of TIFF, Cameron Baileysaid, "We’re in great shape. We’ve got a lot of terrific films that will be presented this year, including many films launching with us. The scope of the filmmaking is global, as we always aim for, but it includes many key films from the US," he told The Hollywood Reporter.

"That’s why filmmakers and film companies and journalists and buyers and sellers come, because they want to see how films play with the Toronto audiences. So there’s all kinds of reasons to bring a film here, even if the strike is continuing. Because you’ll still get that reaction," added Bailey.

The A-list lineup of world premieres includes movies starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Seth Rogen.

The line-up includes Dumb Money, Tony Goldwyn's Ezra,Taika Waititi's sports comedy Next Goal WinsFrench filmmaker Ladj Ly's drama Les Indesirables,Atom Egoyan's Seven Veilsstarring Amanda Seyfried and Michael Keaton's Knox Goes Away,starring Pacino.

The event only returned to full strength in 2022, after two years of online or hybrid events.

TIFFwill run from September 7 to September 17, 2023.

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