The 4th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 6 and September 15, 1979. Due to overcrowding in the prior year, the Gala presentations were moved from the 700-seat Towne Cinema to the 1,600-seat Elgin Theatre. The People's Choice Award was awarded to Best Boy by Ira Wohl, which later won Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

Awards

Programme
This year The American Nightmare retrospective on American horror films was organized by Canadian critic Robin Wood and Richard Lippe. Brian De Palma and George A. Romero attended the retrospective as guests. Also this year Industry programme trade forum was started by festival, which continued till 1991. The festival featured a special programme of films from Sweden, with Jörn Donner, the head of the Swedish Film Institute, and nine Swedish filmmakers attending.

Gala Presentations
...And Justice for All. by Norman Jewison
Black Jack by Ken Loach
Fish Hawk by Donald Shebib
The Heritage by Anders Refn
Legend of the Mountain by King Hu
Linus and the Mysterious Red Brick House by Vilgot Sjöman
Magicians of the Silver Screen by Jiří Menzel
The Magician of Lublin by Menahem Golan
A Man, a Woman, and a Bank by Noel Black
The Marriage of Maria Braun by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
The Onion Field by Harold Becker
Orchestra Rehearsal by Federico Fellini
Quadrophenia by Franc Roddam
Something Short of Paradise by David Helpern
The Tempest by Derek Jarman
Time After Time by Nicholas Meyer
Us Two by Claude Lelouch

Critics Choice
50/50 by Uwe Brandner
Bastien, Bastienne by Michel Andrieu
Drugstore Romance by Paul Vecchiali
Germany in Autumn by Alf Brustellin, Hans Peter Cloos, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Schubert and Bernhard Sinkel
Knife in the Head by Reinhard Hauff
Northern Lights by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson
To an Unknown God by Jaime Chávarri
To Be Sixteen by Jean Pierre Lefebvre

New Directions
America's Sweetheart: The Mary Pickford Story by John Edwards
Arthur Miller on Home Ground by Harry Rasky
Blue Winter by André Blanchard
Radio On by Christopher Petit
The Sailor's Return by Jack Gold
Scum by Alan Clarke
Summer's Children by Julius Kohanyi
Title Shot by Les Rose

Documentaries
Best Boy by Ira Wohl
Chiefs by Richard Leacock
Chronicle of a Summer by Jean Rouch
The Drugstore by Joris Ivens
The Football Incident by Joris Ivens
The Handmaidens of God by Diane Létourneau
Juvenile Court by Frederick Wiseman
Juvenile Liaison by Nick Broomfield
La La, Making It in L.A. by Frank Mouris and Caroline Mouris
Les Raquetteurs by Michel Brault and Gilles Groulx
Salesman by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin
Solzhenitsyn's Children Are Making a Lot of Noise in Paris  by Michael Rubbo
This Will Do for Today by Martin Lavut

Special Screenings
Dinner for Adele by Oldřich Lipský
Let's Talk About Love by Jean-Claude Lord
Molière by Ariane Mnouchkine
Stone Cold Dead by George Mendeluk
Tierra y libertad by Maurice Bulbulian

Buried Treasures
The Confessions of Amans by Gregory Nava
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! by Russ Meyer
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by Peter Yates
The Green Wall by Armando Robles Godoy
Night Moves by Arthur Penn
Ruby by Dick Bartlett
The Scenic Route by Mark Rappaport
The Super Inframan by Hua Shan
Who's That Knocking at My Door by Martin Scorsese

Swedish Cinema
The Man on the Roof by Bo Widerberg
Men Can't Be Raped by Jörn Donner
Near and Far Away by Marianne Ahrne
One and One by Erland Josephson, Sven Nykvist and Ingrid Thulin
A Respectable Life by Stefan Jarl
The Score by Christer Dahl
Sven Klang's Combo by Stellan Olsson
A Walk in the Sun by Hans Dahlberg
The Walls of Freedom by Marianne Ahrne

German Cinema
Bye-Bye Bavaria! by Herbert Achternbusch
The Expulsion from Paradise by Niklaus Schilling
The Main Actor by Reinhard Hauff
Moritz, Dear Moritz by Hark Bohm
On the Move by Adolf Winkelmann

Luce Guilbeault
A tribute program to Canadian actress and filmmaker Luce Guilbeault, featuring both films in which she performed and films she directed.

Denyse Benoît, comedienne by Luce Guilbeault
D'abord ménagères by Luce Guilbeault
Passages by Nesya Shapiro Blue
Réjeanne Padovani by Denys Arcand
Some American Feminists by Luce Guilbeault

Marguerite Duras
Films directed by Marguerite Duras.
Destroy, She Said
India Song
The Lorry
La Musica
Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert

References

External links
 Official site
 TIFF: A Reel History: 1976 - 2012
1979 Toronto International Film Festival at IMDb

1979
1979 film festivals
1979 in Toronto
1979 in Canadian cinema
September 1979 events in Canada