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1978 Toronto International Film Festival

1978 film festival edition

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ15146076 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 3rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 14 and September 21, 1978. It showcased 85 films, the lowest number of films in the festival's history. In Praise of Older Women directed by George Kaczender was selected as the opening film. When the Ontario Film Review Board objected to a 40-second scene between Marilyn Lightstone and Tom Berenger, co-producer of the film Robert Lantos cut the scene for the theatrical run. Despite that, some of the TIFF staff managed to smuggle original uncut version of the film and run it into the theatre. The news was well publicised, increasing interest in the film, in turn boosting ticket sales. Difficulties arose when audiences waiting outside the theatre noticed that each ticket admitted two person thus causing anger in the crowd. The audience who were not able to get seats during the first screening were invited to a later screening. The People's Choice Award was introduced this year, which is given to a feature film chosen by a vote of the festival audience.

Louis Malle's film Pretty Baby was banned by the OFRB, due to its sensitive subject matter.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1978 Toronto International Film Festival” is 1978 film festival edition. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Toronto, International and Film, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Toronto, International and Film is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1978 film festival edition” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15146076. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1978.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1978 Toronto International Film Festival”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1978 Toronto International Film Festival primary sources, 1978 Toronto International Film Festival archive and Toronto research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1978 Toronto International Film Festival”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1978 Toronto International Film Festival” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.