The Paul Wells Show Live Podcast Taping: TIFF's CEO Cameron Bailey on the Future of Movies

What is it like running a prestigious film festival in a post-pandemic world, where streaming has upset the traditional dynamics of Hollywood?

Paul Wells was joined in conversation with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey to discuss upheaval in the movie world — the cultural politics, the technology, the ways we think about gathering to experience stories together.

This event was part of a week of live podcast tapings for The Paul Wells Show. The Paul Wells Show is produced by Antica Productions in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the National Arts Centre. The founding sponsor is TELUS. The title sponsor is Compass Rose. Its publishing partners are The Toronto Star and iPolitics.

About our Speakers:

Cameron Bailey is CEO of TIFF and the Toronto International Film Festival®. He is responsible for setting TIFF’s strategic direction and leading its teams toward fulfilling TIFF's mission to transform the way people see the world through film.

Bailey grew up in England and Barbados before migrating to Canada. He began his career as a film critic, then joined TIFF in 1990 as a seasonal programmer. At TIFF he headed the Festival's Perspective Canada program, and founded its Planet Africa section in 1995. For 20 years he worked as both programmer and critic, contributing to Toronto’s NOW Magazine, CBC Radio One, and CTV’s Canada AM. He has been published in The Globe and Mail, The Village Voice, and Screen, along with several books. In 2015, Bailey participated in CBC's Canada Reads competition, successfully championing Kim Thuy’s novel Ru.

Bailey has taught film curation at the University of Toronto, and holds an honorary doctorate from Western University. He is a Chevalier in France's Order of Arts and Letters and is a member-at-large of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. For 10 consecutive years, (2012–2021), Toronto Life magazine has named him one of Toronto’s 50 Most Influential People.

Paul Wells is one of Canada’s leading political journalists, having spent more than 25 years on the Hill, covering eight federal elections, four prime ministers, and a big piece of Canada’s history. Fresh, funny, and authoritative, Wells speaks in both official languages on all matters of the day, from the nation’s position in the global economy, to the inside scoop on what’s really happening inside the Parliament buildings and beyond.

For 19 years, Wells was the lead political columnist at Maclean’s magazine. Prior to this, he was the national affairs columnist at The Toronto Star and has also written for the Globe and Mail and The National Post. Wells has won three gold National Magazine Awards and a National Newspaper Award.

Today, Wells is a regular political commentator on both the French- and English-language CBC networks. He has also launched a subscription newsletter, which is already one of the most widely read political newsletters in Canada. In fall 2022, Wells will launch his podcast, The Paul Wells Show, in partnership with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He is also their inaugural journalist fellow-in-residence for the 2022-23 academic year.

A bestselling author, The New Yorker magazine called Wells “Canada’s foremost Harperologist” with the release of his book on Stephen Harper, The Longer I’m Prime Minister. It is the only book to have ever won three major non-fiction book awards: The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize, the John W. Dafoe Book Prize, and the Ottawa Book Award.