Peter Howell: Farewell to Noah Cowan, the ultimate film buff and “true child of TIFF”

Nobody could top Noah Cowan for loving and defending movies of every stripe, from the art house gold of “Tokyo Story” to the multiplex cheese of “The Towering Inferno.”

The internationally renowned former co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival, who died Wednesday at age 55 from the brain malady glioblastoma, was fervent about his cinema obsession. He once couriered me a book from his private library to “educate” me about a director whose film I’d panned.

It wasn’t meant as an insult and I didn’t take it as such. A man of quick wit, keen intellect and eclectic tastes who had a degree in philosophy from Montreal’s McGill University, Cowan considered himself an evangelist for cinema in all its forms and pursuits, the latter including stints as critic, programmer, director and distributor at home and abroad.

“In many ways your favourite films are like music,” he said in an interview. “Like if you break up with your lover and there’s a certain set of records you must listen to within the next 24 hours.”

Cowan demonstrated his wide-ranging interests and versatility during his nearly quarter-century with TIFF, starting as a box-office volunteer at age 14 in 1981. Moving up to film programmer, he championed international film, and co-founded and ran the popular Midnight Madness program. He concluded as festival co-director from 2004 to ’07 and artistic director of TIFF Bell Lightbox from 2008 to ’14 before heading stateside for new film adventures.

“Noah was a true child of TIFF,” said former TIFF CEO/director Piers Handling, who led the organization until 2018 and shared co-director duties with Cowan for several years.

“He had a zest for life and all its experiences that coalesced around his love and advocacy for cinema. He was a major supporter of independent cinema from all over the world and carved out a space for it wherever he worked.

“He was curious, open, discerning — and highly opinionated — in his tastes, whether he was embracing the craziness of Midnight Madness, the pleasures of the vital cinemas emerging from Asia, or his passion for an expanded cinema that reached beyond the four walls of a theatre.”

Cowan’s close friend Nuria Bronfman, the executive director of the Motion Picture Theatre Associations of Canada and a TIFF colleague from 1991 to 2001, remembers Noah as a unique individual: “He was a larger than life, magnanimous person who was able to touch so many people in so many different ways, be it through film, or his love of good food and wine, or his incredible friendships that he developed all over the world. He was one of a kind. There is no one who will ever be like him.”

Cameron Bailey, the current TIFF CEO, has similar fond and potent memories of his friend and TIFF co-worker: “Beyond his resumé, Noah still stands for me as a unique, blazing fire in the film world. I never met anyone quite like him. He was hilarious, rude, loud, sentimental and deeply informed about the most surprising things. He could talk high art cinema and Japanese trash movies, Hollywood auteurs and Zacharias Kunuk. He had a wide, global range of friends who reflected his dazzling passion for life.”

Cowan’s zeal for the Hollywood disaster flick “The Towering Inferno” was emblematic of his unabashed love of genre movies, no matter what snobby critics might think. He listed the 1974 cheese fest, starring Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen and O.J. Simpson as escapees from a burning office building, as one of his top three movies of all time in a 2004 feature I wrote for the Star. (His other top faves were Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 family heart-tugger “Tokyo Story” and Seijun Suzuki’s 1964 prostitution drama “Gate of Flesh.”)

Cowan didn’t try the old critical dodge of explaining away his fondness for “The Towering Inferno” as a guilty pleasure.

“I love ‘The Towering Inferno,’ top to bottom,” he insisted. “I’ve seen it about 12 times.

“To me, ‘The Towering Inferno’ is one of the greatest of the great star-driven disaster epics of all time. It needs to find a place on those movie critic lists. Anybody who says there’s nothing glamorous about Hollywood is a liar. To me, it’s sort of central and intrinsic to all of our souls. If you’re going to embrace that, don’t embrace it half-heartedly.”

His devotion to genre cinema led him to leave TIFF for a time in the early part of this century. He relocated to New York City, where he was co-founder and president of Cowboy Pictures, a U.S. independent film distributor.

It was thought at the time that Cowan left TIFF because he was tired of waiting for Handling to step down and hand him the reins as fest director. Cowan denied that, saying his real motivation was getting theatrical distribution for the many Midnight Madness movies he’d programmed that often ended up going straight to video.

“Honestly, my frustration at the festival had nothing to do with the job or my role there. It was an amazing job,” he said. “My frustration was seeing all these films that I’d loved so much and expended so much energy on just withering on the vine, or slinking off into a less-than-exciting life.”

He took to the new job with his usual gusto and flair for humorous promotions. He publicized an ancient Italian zombie movie by mailing plastic bloodshot eyeballs to film critics. (The eyeball made a dandy paperweight.)

Cowan also became involved with the Global Film Initiative, a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting cinema in the developing world, from production to distribution.

When he returned to TIFF in 2004 to become co-director with Handling, it was with the understanding he’d soon transition into the top job of the festival, with Handling shifting into the CEO post.

It didn’t work out that way, for reasons that included the complicated launch of TIFF Bell Lightbox. Cowan instead became in 2008 the founding artistic director of the Lightbox, a post that included curating public exhibitions in the Lightbox’s ground-floor display space, a wide-ranging series of artifact-rich retrospectives on Grace Kelly, David Cronenberg, Chinese cinema and Indian superstar Raj Kapoor, among others.

Ever restless for new challenges, Cowan left TIFF in 2014 to become executive director of SFFILM in San Francisco, which oversees the San Francisco International Film Festival.

He remained there until moving to Los Angeles in 2019 to launch Noah Cowan Consulting, a consultancy firm for film, media and visual arts organizations. Bronfman said that Noah was still intently involved in business and creative discussions right up to the day of his death.

“I saw him last week and we were having chats about strategy and all these sorts of things. The disease had unfortunately developed to the latter stages, but he was still in there. His intelligence and his wit were still very prevalent.”

Handling said Cowan will be missed for many things, but high on the list will be his exuberant approach to film and culture: “After a full day of screenings, he always knew the best place to eat, the tastiest food to order, the right wine to order, all wrapped around his joy of serious chat about the films we had seen — or indulging in just good, plain, juicy industry gossip! He was fun to be around. A vital spirit.”

Cowan leaves his husband, John O’Rourke; parents Nuala FitzGerald Cowan and Edgar Cowan; and brothers Brian FitzGerald and Tim FitzGerald.

SHARE: