INSIDE THE BOX

The outlook was bright for the Toronto International Film Festival when the arts organization opened its sparkly King Street hub 24 years ago. How did TIFF's Lightbox become its money pit?

- SORAYA ROBERTS

YOU DON’T NOTICE what’s missing at first. Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox—that unassuming glass grid, dwarfed by the enormous monolithic condo protruding from the top of it—still looks the same. Inside the five-storey space is a surprising 16,000 square metres containing five cinemas, a screening room, a gallery and a library as well as office spaces from which to oversee it all: the not-for-profit arts organization, which is dedicated to “transforming the way people see the world through film.”

Then you catch it: The “TIFF” sign is still there above the entrance, but “Bell Lightbox” has been quietly removed. Canada’s leading telecom company got naming rights thanks to a $30-million investment in 2006, back when this King Street building—designed to be the headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival—was still being erected. But last summer, Bell suddenly dropped its sponsorship. Now, the sign looks naked, diminutive—four tiny letters for that cavernous house of mirrors.

When the Lightbox opened in 2010, Noah Cowan, the organization’s artistic director at the time, claimed that its only real analogue was London’s British Film Institute. Last year, the Lightbox screened 504 films; much of its programming is the kind of smaller, independent and international cinema that is so hard to find at the multiplex these days. This year, it increased its membership by almost a quarter, and since it first opened, it has grown its revenue by $17 million. Coinciding with TIFF’s 50th anniversary next year, the Lightbox’s upcoming 15th is itself an achievement.