In the wake of winning the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year, Taylor Swift brought “All Too Well: The Short Film” to the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9 for a discussion in front of scores of devoted fans. How devoted? The first group of fans in line arrived at midnight, the second group at 5 a.m. — and they didn’t even have tickets yet, but were hoping that will call would answer their prayers, or that they would catch a glimpse of Swift walking by.
The talk, alongside TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, focused on her directorial process and thinking of her music from a visual angle. It was also coupled with the first 35mm screening of “All Too Well,” which she wrote, directed, produced and makes an appearance in.
The headline news? Deep into the conversation, Bailey asked if Swift would be interested in one day making feature films, and she said yes, if she could find the right material.
She also revealed why the “All Too Well” visual took her ten years to visualize.
“For me, the song was so tough because it was about something that at that point was very current for me. I would have a really hard time performing it at the time,” she said. “I had to really like force myself to focus on other things to try to get through it during tour. So there would there would be no world in which I could have made a visual element to that song at that time. I needed ten years of retrospect in order to know what I would even make to to tell a version of that story visually. And I’m so grateful that I was able to do that with some crazy stroke of all these different twists of fate.”
“All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” came out in November 2021, alongside an extended, 10-minute version of the song released on “Red (Taylor’s Version).” It stars Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien portraying a relationship with an age gap that mirrors the song’s lyrics. Swift previously screened and discussed the film at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. The viral music video, alongside a performance of the full 10-minute version on “Saturday Night Live,” helped Swift win the Guinness World Record for Longest Song to Reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
After winning the Video of the Year VMA for “All Too Well,” Swift announced in her acceptance speech that she would be releasing her next album, “Midnights,” on Oct. 21.
