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How TIFF’s Executive Director & COO, Michèle Maheux, turned a two- week festival into a year-round community

How TIFF’s Executive Director & COO, Michèle Maheux, turned her passion for film into success.

BY STEPHANIE MARIS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY KOUROSH KESHIRI |


Michèle Maheux’s love affair with film dates back to drive-in movies during the hot summer nights of her childhood. Crammed in the back seat of her parents’ car, eightyear- old Maheux was inspired by films like The Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago. She never imagined decades later, she’d have the chance to reveal her childhood crush on Omar Sharif to the actor himself, moments before introducing him at a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) event.

As TIFF’s executive director and chief operating officer, Maheux has dedicated her life to sharing her passion for film. She says her mission is to use the festival to transform the way people see the world. “I want to be engaged, lose myself in the story, the presentation, the look and feel of the film. And I want to be moved, inspired, made to laugh, cry or care. And at the end, I want to desperately share that experience with other people.”

Maheux has been involved with TIFF for over two decades. Today, she is responsible for all business and operations of the $33-million organization, including overseeing the $140-million dollar TIFF Bell Lightbox project.

TIFF Bell Lightbox was created to give the nomadic festival a permanent base. According to Maheux, the organization’s greatest challenge was to convince fundraisers that the two-week event required this year-round home to properly fulfill its mission.

“TIFF has been more than the Festival for a number of years with year round programming and community outreach in at-risk neighbourhoods as well as across Canada in underserved communities,” Maheux explains. On September 12, 2010, TIFF Bell Lightbox celebrated its opening with a block party on King Street West, closing down a strip of Toronto’s busy entertainment district.

“I think back to when we weren’t sure we were going to pull it off,” she says. “And here we are. We just chipped away at each of the obstacles and made it happen.”

These obstacles included the strikes, diseases and economy that make up Toronto’s urban climate, and often wreak havoc on its downtown core. TIFF Bell Lightbox itself is in a state of constant improvement, driven by audience feedback.

“We heard from our audience and members what we needed to do,” Maheux explains. “They are our biggest supporters and [also] our biggest challenges because they hold us to our promise of artistic excellence.”

It is through their audience and members that TIFF has created a support network, and Maheux describes the creation of TIFF Kids as one of the turning points for this ongoing capital campaign.

“We had to figure out how we could retell our story in a way to inspire our philanthropists, governments and corporations,” she says. “Film is a very powerful tool.”

Beyond what Maheux describes as “festival moments” in September, her most encouraging feedback comes from the children who take part in the event each year.

“Each year after our children’s festival, we get these incredible letters,” she says. “One was from [a boy] who sat on our youth jury. He was formerly bullied at school, but returned as a hero for his experience at the festival.”

Follow your bliss. What makes you happy should make you successful.

The success of the TIFF Bell Lightbox project parallels Maheux’s impressive career: a combination of determination and the passion she encourages everybody to pursue.

“Follow your bliss,” she says. “What makes you happy should make you successful.”

This simple advice comes from experience. Maheux’s career began when she was a student struggling in Carlton’s journalism program. There, she reviewed a political film by Denis Arcand, Rejeanne Padovani, and was prompted by her professor to follow her passion and switch to film studies.

Soon after, Maheux went on to run a local arthouse cinema with friends. Her foray into the world of movie management included everything from selling popcorn to public relations.

“I ran the candy bar, sold strip tickets and did the publicity and media relations,” she says. “Most importantly, I watched everything we showed many times, saw everything in commercial release, and studied the history of film and became hooked.”

From there, it was lights, camera, action. Maheux worked in the distribution and exhibition fields of the film industry and established MMM Marketing, a consulting company. She also worked as an assistant to the director of the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa, where she met Piers Handling, now CEO and director of TIFF. It was the beginning of what would become a 30-year partnership.

However as any film buff knows, no story is complete without conflict and resolution. The meteoric rise of Maheux’s career with TIFF had humble beginnings, starting immediately after her previous employers downsized to cut costs.

“But then,” she says, “there was TIFF.” Maheux reached out to Handling (then TIFF’s artistic director) and received an invitation to “come play” with a volunteer position in the press office; a position that grew into her flourishing career.

“The opportunity that came out of that really challenging experience was magic,” she says, adding, “that’s the kind of thing that dreams are made of.”

The rest of Maheux’s story resembles one of the festival’s fairytales: she met husband John Galway, another TIFF volunteer, in 1989. They married in 1993, and are in the process of raising two young film fanatics.

“My kids inspire me every day,” she says. “Raising them in today’s very complicated and media-savvy world, I gravitate to films that show positive influences such as strong female protagonists for our daughter, and sympathetic souls for our son.”

As for the protagonist Maheux most admires?

“Ripley, in Alien. Hands down the most kick-ass female role ever created in film. She is maternal, whip smart, strong and gorgeous.”

It is a fitting pick for a woman who juggles a multi-million dollar cultural organization, marriage and motherhood on a daily basis. Her advice to other women in the industry is to preserve the friendships they’ve established throughout their lives.

“I think that the boy’s network is overrated, and the women’s network is underrated in today’s society — let’s change that,” she says.

“There are wonderfully talented young women out there, at TIFF and in the industry at large who have big aspirations and dreams,” she says. “And if I can play any part whatsoever in their development through encouragement, advice, example – that makes my heart sing.”