Bio
Cameron Bailey is the Chief Executive Officer of TIFF and the Toronto International Film Festival. He is responsible for the vision, strategy and overall management of one of Canada’s premier cultural brands, responsible for presenting the world’s largest public film festival each September.
Born in London, 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, devoted to Canadian cinema, and founded its Planet Africa section in 1995, curating a selection of new films from the African continent and diaspora.
For 20 years he worked as both programmer and critic, contributing to Toronto's NOW Magazine, CBC Radio One, TVO and CTV’s Canada AM. He has been published in The Globe and Mail, The Village Voice and the UK's Screen, as well as in several books, including the Phaidon publication Take 100. In 2015, Bailey participated in CBC's Canada Reads broadcasts, successfully championing Kim Thuy's novel, Ru, to victory in the competition.
Bailey has taught film curation at the University of Toronto, and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from Western University.
Bailey has organized film series for festivals and institutions including the National Gallery of Canada and Australia’s Sydney International Film Festival. He has hosted filmmaker conversations at many film industry events, including in Cannes, Goa, Dubai and Doha. He has also served on awards juries at festivals including Busan, Tokyo, Reykjavik, Zanzibar, and Beijing, and has been an Advisory Board member and juror for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. He has given talks at several Canadian universities, the Smithsonian Institution and Harvard University.
He is past co-chair of the Arts & Culture Working Group of Toronto's CivicAction, and in 2016 joined the board of CivicAction. In 2007, Bailey was a part of the delegation accompanying Canada's Governor-General Michaëlle Jean on her state visit to Brazil. In 2020, he chaired an Ontario ministerial panel to develop a COVID-19 response for Toronto's eight largest arts organizations.
Bailey is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a Chevalier in France's Order of Arts and Letters. For eleven years (2012–2022), Toronto Life magazine has named him one of Toronto’s 50 Most Influential People.
Term
July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2027
Committees
Fund Raising and Donor Relations (Vice-Chair), Governance and By-Laws