TIFF In Retrospect

Although I have yet to finish posting all of my pictures and although the Toronto International Film Festival still runs until Sunday, for my purposes, it's all over. I was planning on going down today to maybe catch an autograph from Kevin Spacey or Kelly Preston but the rain and the feeling of an oncoming sickness forced me to hang back at home.

Oh well, for five days, despite how exhausting, time consuming and expensive it got, I've just finished living a dream of sorts. Not in the sense that now my life feels complete but in the sense that I felt like I was in the middle of something important. How many people, after all, get to tell one of their favourite director's that he's the next Scorsese and have him respond to it, or tell Michael C. Hall that Six Feet Under was the best show that's ever been on TV and have him thank you? Not a lot.

You see I grew up in a small town of around 5,000 people where citizens and family members cared more about cars and farm equipment than movies. When I told my high school co-op coordinator that I wanted to co-op at a newspaper because I one day wanted to be a movie critic he laughed, and not a good laugh either. Five years later, with the decline of newspapers, I'm still no closer to being a famous film critic than I was back than, or even an unfamous one making money, but I at least now feel like I've been one step closer to the things I truly love.

At first I went down to the red carpets with the sole purpose of snapping some celebrities to show off to the people I know. And then it became about getting autographs. But I wasn't one of those people who stand at the red carpet to get anyone with a pulse who walks by to sign their sheets of paper, I wanted to go and show the actors and filmmakers that I respect that I continue to support them and continue to love them. I even started taking DVD covers to their less popular work: A Scanner Darkly for Keanu Reeves, La Haine for Vincent Cassell, Thief for James Caan, The Long Good Friday for Helen Mirren. Sometimes they got signed, sometimes they didn't. That's life, but it was fun the whole way through. It was an experience that let me meet those people who, until now, have only been projections at 24 frames per second, and realize that most of them are just like us and can only hope that someone will recognize them and show them some love (I still haven't decided if John Madden's publicist coming over and asking if we wanted to meet him was more funny, tragic or just English modesty).

In the end, if I never go back again, it will have been worth all the moments of being pushed, the aching feet, the yelling at the top of your lungs. But who am I kidding, I'm already counting down the days till next September.