The Toronto International Film Festival has come and gone yet again and let me be among the first to say…good riddance. We have finally said goodbye to the city’s annual week and a half of stargazing, traffic jams and tabloid journalism. For those outside of Toronto who see the glamour of the red carpet on television and fantasize about being here, rest easy, the dream is almost certainly better than the real thing. Why does everyone in this city seem to trip over their own feet once a year to try to catch a glimpse of a celebrity? The only answer that comes to mind is that the culture of celebro-centric journalism that pervades the local dailies, weekly magazines and 24–hour news channels has infected the public psyche.

Does it make Toronto a more interesting and worldly place because Oprah was here for a couple of days? Most certainly not. Did George Clooney, Matt Damon or Tyler Perry take time to experience any part of what Toronto actually is? Probably not. The celebrity attendees of the festival typically experience a city that only exists during the festival. They rarely see the outside of the Four Seasons Hotel — and when they do leave its blanched concrete walls, it’s only to eat at restaurants that are virtually off limits to the general public, walk around in the rarefied air of Yorkville (downtown Toronto’s playground for the rich and powerful) or smile blankly at a thousand flashbulbs screaming their name on the red carpet.

The real purpose of TIFF was largely AWOL this year, as scores of deserving films vying for North American distribution and press were passed over in favour of breaking news items about what Megan Fox had for breakfast. There was little-to-no appetite, however, for the business behind the scenes: as Roger Ebert reported yesterday, only one independent film (Tom Ford’s A Single Man) was purchased for distribution this year. A prime example of a movie lost in the celebrity buzz was Pedro González-Rubio’s Alamar (To the Sea). This film not only tells a wonderful and heartwarming story about a father reconnecting with his son, but also raises awareness about the world’s second largest coral reef in Chinchorro, Mexico, and local efforts to have it designated a world heritage site. Alamar earned a modicum of press coverage for its dramatic content and green message, but was otherwise lost in the sea of fluff that surrounded this year’s festival.

For all of the early controversy about TIFF’s partnership with Tel Aviv filmmakers, coverage of the issue pretty much died out as soon as the stars came to town. The tempest centred on TIFF’s inaugural “City to City Spotlight,” which some thought represented a cave-in to the Israeli government’s Brand Israel media and advertising campaign. Once the festival began the issue only seemed to exist in a series of open letters and op-ed pieces. There were no mass boycotts or protests outside theatres; by all reports, TIFF’s Israeli films were well attended. What’s more, in spite of the recession that still grips this continent, the content of Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, received relatively little attention. Coverage instead focused on the girth of his celebrity (pun intended). One particularly memorable video had Moore behind the camera interviewing The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell. Both men seemed to deliberately avoid talking about Capitalism itself, with Moore going so far as to demand that his film’s poster be removed from the shot.

I could not escape the pervasive culture of commercialism while attending TIFF events. A free showing of U2’s 1988 concert documentary Rattle and Hum at Toronto’s Yonge and Dundas Square drew some 200 rabid fans who begged off work to have a few drinks and clap along to a decades-old performance of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. These people were treated to cross-promotion at its highest level: screenings of the band’s recent BlackBerry commercial bookended the film, and there was a BlackBerry sales tent on site for anyone duly inspired to make an immediate purchase.

All that being said, I’m sure everyone’s spirits will have revived in time for next year’s festival — when the stars will burn brighter, the film schedule will be even bigger and the lines spread out ever longer.

Thanks to A.N. and P.M.