The organizer of the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show (TOPS) — the annual event that hosts free film screenings in parks across the city — is raising alarm concerning the organization's financial future.
Speaking with The Globe and Mail, executive director Emily Reid explained how many of the funding sources for the "very tightly budgeted festival" have dried up, saying, "it's by far the absolute worst it has ever been."
Toronto Outdoor Picture Show's 2024 season runs through to August 25, screening films including Sorry to Bother You, Empire Records, Someone Lives Here and more as part of its "On the Job" programme theme.
"There's never been a moment like this where we're in the middle of the summer and we know the results to all our funding applications and it's all bad news," Reid told The Globe, noting that TOPS requires $70,000 in additional funding to cover its annual budget of about $570,000 and plan its 2025 edition.
The Globe and Mail's report, which can be read in full here, points to lack of funding from government grants, and a decline in private sponsorship.
"It's not that we've lost operational funding — we've never been entitled to it, and every year we start from the ground up in applying for grants," Reid said. "But the funding envelopes have all been cut or oversubscribed. All of a sudden, the bottom is falling out from under us.
"Our programming will be delivered until the end of the season, but we might not have an organization by the fall," Reid shared. "With culture nonprofits at a breaking point, the city won't have much programming, free or paid, to lean on soon."
News of the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show's financial troubles is the latest blow to the city's film scene, following the landlord meddling affecting the Revue Cinema, and similar financial issues affecting the Hot Docs festival.