Carole Freeman’s exhibition, If the Paparazzi Could Paint, referencing films and celebrities featured at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, was installed simultaneously at Rebecca Gallery and official Festival headquarters, the Hyatt Regency Hotel, across the street from the new but only partially open TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Fifty portraits included paintings and monotypes of Julian Schnabel, Deepa Mehta, Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Sarah Polley, Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Uma Thurman, Juliette Binoche, Dennis Hopper, Martin Scorcese, Helen Mirren, and more. The portrait of Isabella Rosellini was featured in a full-page National Post article, Celebrity Apprentice. Upon eyeing the Johnny Depp portrait, Morgan Spurlock, director and actor in the documentaries Supersize Me and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden, commissioned Freeman to paint a sartorial portrait of his producing partner, Jeremy Chilnick.

In 2011, inspired by the stellar line-up of high-profile documentaries at the Festival that year, Freeman exhibited a new body of work, Doing the Docs, that focussed on premiers of Pina by Wim Wenders, Pearl Jam Twenty by Cameron Crowe, Gerhard Richter Painting by Corinna Belz, Paul Williams Still Alive by Stephen Kessler, Neil Young Journeys by Jonathon Demme, From the Sky Down by Davis Guggenheim about the 1991 production of U2’s album Achtung Baby, and Concert for New York City by Abert Maysle, featuring performances by Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton.

Freeman was also a silent auction donor to the Canadian Film Centre at the 2011 CFC Annual BBQ. With paintings visible through the windows on King Street two years in a row, David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg in 2010, Bono and the Edge in 2011, Freeman’s work heightened the Festival buzz with movie fans snapping and tweeting selfies outside and in, beside portraits of their favorite actors. Remaining in the hotel long after the closing of each Festival, Piers Handling, TIFF Director, said Freeman’s work “had become part of the Festival neighbourhood.”

During the 2012 Festival, five paintings were installed as part of a group exhibition: After No referencing Pablo Larrain’s film No and four paintings from the Freeman’s series Sets and Stills featuring Moonrise Kingdom, Amour, Hemingway and Gelhorn, and Cosmopolis.