Let’s hate Toronto, Canadian documentary says
TORONTO (Reuters) – The dislike of Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, in the rest of the country runs so deep that a filmmaker has made a documentary about it.
“People in Toronto are soulless, one-eyed corporate zombies,” Joey Keithley, of the Vancouver punk band D.O.A., says in the film, “Let’s All Hate Toronto.”
The 73-minute film, which premieres at Toronto’s Hot Docs documentary festival next week, follows a character called Mister Toronto, who embarks on a cross-Canada trip brandishing a sign that reads “Toronto Appreciation Day” and steels himself for the onslaught.
His tour leads from Newfoundland on the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific city of Vancouver, where feelings against Toronto — usually acknowledged as the country’s financial center and the cultural capital of English Canada — run deepest of all.
“There is something different (about hating Toronto). People are more passionate about it,” filmmaker and co-director Albert Neremberghe said in an interview.
“People have a grudging respect for New York outside of the city, and have a grudging respect for London. But people outside of Toronto don’t have that for Toronto, they really don’t.”
Neremberg, who is from Montreal, got the idea for the film from a 1956 publication with the same name as the movie.
He said collective dislike of a city is not unique to Canada, and said he might like to make similar films on other countries’ love-hate relationships with major cities.
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