Cool Gala Celebrates TIFF Opener

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, an account of the first contact between European explorers and the Inuit, opened the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and starred at an opening gala for 4,000, held at the Liberty Grand. Planner Barbara Hershenhorn, president of Party Barbara Co., incorporated.phpects of the film, which is set in Canada's North West Territories, into the production and design of the event. A large faux igloo housing a bar from Laird FX created a dramatic impression in the courtyard. Iceman contributed ice cocktail tables to complete the setting. The main event space resembled a desolate northern environment. The temperature was kept at freezing, and white cocktail tables and ghost bar stools were scattered like snow-covered ice floes at one end the long white bar, all from Contemporary Furniture. White clouds hand made hung above the bar, while floor-to-ceiling white curtains covered the walls. Overhead lighting from ESG, designed by Bruce Duncan lit the curtains, creating the illusion of ever-changing northern lights. A secondary event space featured normal room temperature and floral arrangements with evergreen branches and blooms, suggesting the far north in summer.