tiffbot toronto

Now a Messenger bot will tell you what to see at TIFF

It's hard to decide what to see at TIFF considering there are nearly 400 films (including both features and shorts) screening at the festival.

Instead of wading through the program, you can always put your TIFF experience in the hands of a Facebook Messenger bot. This friendly little guy will suggest movies for you based on your favourite genre (be it comedy, drama or documentary). Once it shoots out a pick, you'll get a link to a trailer and a blurb about why each film is "buzz-worthy."

TWG and 88 Creative (both Toronto-based companies) worked together to create this artificially intelligent film critic. Put simply, it's a Chatfuel chat bot that lives on Facebook Messenger. You can't go super in depth with it, but when I tried it, it did show me some movies I hadn't considered before.

When I typed in documentary, for instance, I got a link to Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno. "Werner has two volcano films in the festival at once. This doc will be better," said the bot.

While TIFFBOT might not be suitable for festival aficionados, it'll probably help newbies navigate through the festival's list of titles.


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