Julia Roberts being photographed by celebrity photographer George Pimentel. Photo credit: Spiro Mandylor
Growing up, I was lucky enough to experience TIFF as a fan and spectator. My mom and my aunt would treat me to a movie or two. If I was lucky enough, I would even get to to see or meet a celebrity. I remember sitting 2 rows behind Matt Damon and Ben Affleck for the premiere of Good Will Hunting and I was in heaven. I even mustered up the courage to talk to Christian Bale and tell him how much of a big fan I was – I totally sounded like a dork but I did it.
I guess it was a natural progression that I would work in the entertainment field – I worked my first TIFF in 2001 where I did PR for a little Canadian Film called Hollywood North. It was such an eye-opening experience to really experience the glamour, the guts, the glory, the adrenaline and the pure exhaustion. I was blessed to work during TIFF for many years talent wrangling for a gifting lounge as well as handling red carpet events. I have too many crazy celebrities stories to tell but I do have to say may favorite celebrity encounter was meeting Ryan Gosling. What a lovely human being inside and out. Hubba hubba.
Ryan Gosling with his mom and sister at the IT Lounge
The general public has no idea how many countless hours goes into preparing for TIFF. And so, I thought it would be interesting to combine my experience at TIFF with my love of filmmaking to produce and direct my first feature-length documentary Behind The Red Carpet.
BEHIND THE RED CARPET follows five lead characters who are the top in their field including Toronto/New York based publicist Natasha Koifman, a foremost journalist, Chris Jancelewicz, Casie Stewart, world famous blogger, George Pimentel, Canada’s most renowned celebrity photographer as well as Pierre Jutras, venue operator and President of The Spoke Club. These key players are thrown into the fire as they try their very best to appease the biggest and brightest stars from around the globe.
The doc highlights the biggest events with the hottest stars including Julia Roberts, Nicholas Cage, Mila Kunis, Maria Bello, Moran Atias, Colin Firth, Paul Haggis, Adrien Brody, Michael Bolton, Caitlin Cronenberg, Mekhi Phifer to name a few.
15 seconds of fame = 1000 hours of planning, 10 days of mayhem and 0 hours of sleep!
Behind The Red Carpet is currently running on the documentary channel in Canada as well as the Hollywood Suite Movies Channel. I know shameless plug – here are some upcoming air dates if you wanted to catch a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what really happens during TIFF. The first air date is this coming Tuesday, September 6th at 1:30PM on the HS2000s.
| Program Air Dates | |
| Channel | Airing Date/Time |
| HS2000s (On Air) | Mon, Sep 26, 2016 11:20:00 |
| HS80s (On Air) | Sat, Sep 10, 2016 14:20:00 |
| HS80s (On Air) | Sat, Sep 17, 2016 06:35:00 |
| HS90s (On Air) | Sat, Sep 24, 2016 07:40:00 |
| HS2000s (On Air) | Sun, Sep 11, 2016 13:30:00 |
| HS2000s (On Air) | Sun, Sep 18, 2016 14:00:00 |
| HS2000s (On Air) | Sun, Sep 25, 2016 16:15:00 |
| HS70s (On Air) | Thu, Sep 22, 2016 14:55:00 |
| HS90s (On Air) | Tue, Sep 20, 2016 12:05:00 |
| HS80s (On Air) | Tue, Sep 20, 2016 16:40:00 |
| HS70s (On Air) | Tue, Sep 20, 2016 18:25:00 |
If you don’t have cable or don’t live in Canada, Behind The Red Carpet is available on Itunes, XBox, Vimeo, Amazon, and Google Play. Click on the link here.
Check out the promo trailer.
Urban Suburban Mommy will be featuring TIFF interviews next week and we can’t wait to share! Thanks for your support and enjoy!