The 81-year-old Canadian artist and experimental filmmaker Michael Snow is suing Toronto developers and a Hollywood producer for $950,000 in damages after he was denied payment for an installation, which they argue was never officially commissioned. Snow, who is perhaps best known in Ontario for his 1979 work "Flight Stop" — featuring Canada geese soaring through Toronto’s Eaton Center — is suing for breach of contract, misappropriation of personality, and unjust enrichment in reference to "Tower of Film," a piece he had begun for the entrance to the new headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival.

According to the Toronto Star, he filed suit in Ontario Superior Court on July 16, targeting the condominium developers Daniels Corp., the King John Festival Corp. (founded to oversee the TIFF construction project), and Ivan Reitman, the owner of the land on which the festival’s new home is being built, as well as the producer of such classics as "Ghostbusters," "Animal House," "Kindergarten Cop," and "EuroTrip."

Snow, who is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, proposed a floor-to-ceiling film strip at the entrance of the organization’s new building — an over-40-story condominium structure "Festival Tower" constructed atop a five-story "Bell Lightbox" space, which is due to open September 12. Representatives of the developing firms, however, are arguing that no contract was ever drawn up, and that Snow was only one of a group of artists being considered for the commission.

While the artist’s agent, Ian McCallum, agrees that there was no official contract, he insists that his client saw the presence of a draft along with a legally binding "exchange of considerations," as proof of a direct commission worth around $450,000. If a judge deems this to be the case, the parties behind the Festival Tower will owe Snow more than the $20,000 he has already been paid, as a public-art mandate in Toronto requires that the value of an on-site art installation should equal one percent of the construction costs of the structure it adorns.

No matter what the ruling, it will be interesting to see what Snow has to say at his October 4 discussion of "Wavelength," an experimental film he made in 1967 — quite different from Reitman’s filmic fare — scheduled to take place after a screening of the work at the festival’s new home.