Audience faints at Toronto film festival

Toronto : One person in the audience had fainted during the Midnight Madness show on the first night of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) during the screening of the film "Revenge", media reported.

"Suddenly there was screaming because the person next to them had fainted," an attendee of the TIFF's Midnight Madness opening night film has told the BBC.

The fainting occurred at the screening in 2017 of "Revenge", a brutal feminist thriller directed by Coralie Fargeat.

In 2016, Julia Ducournau's horror film "Raw", about cannibalism, resulted in ambulances being called to the scene, the BBC Culture said. This is not the kind of behaviour typically associated with film festivals.

But Midnight Madness, which includes the new "Halloween" starring Jamie Lee Curtis in its lineup as well as Shane Black's new film "The Predator", -- one of the most popular programming lineups at TIFF -- is so popular that an elaborate set of rituals has grown up around it.

The TIFF is being held from September 6 to 16.