Say hello to my little (best) friend...

As our faithful followers are well aware, Lawren spent the last few days in Toronto. She screened some great movies, and some just plain weird ones. But none as weird as Moron Movies. I saw her time away as my chance to educate the world, but she saw it as a blatant sign of disrespect. So now I'm on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION and she's taking over the blog. Just kidding. Who better than the legend herself to give you the firsthand account of the experience. Now, your curator.

It was very hard to wrestle the computer away from Jigar, so I hope I don't disappoint. In my research for a/perture cinema, I came across an article written by a fellow theater owner who said that out of the multitude of film festivals around the world, the Toronto International Film Festival (tiff) is the one to hit up if you are a film exhibitor. The festival screens more than 300 films over a ten day period, not to mention, many of the recent "award winners" have come out of tiff including Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, and Crash. How could I pass up the opportunity?

Frequent flier miles, my in-laws offer to babysit and my mom's companionship all made the trip possible. We spent four full days in Toronto, making it to 12.5 films. Below is a summary of the festival in list form:

Longest time spent in line: 3 hours for The White Ribbon - totally worth it! I would love to get this film to a/perture this Winter.
Buckets of popcorn consumed: a mere 1/2 of a bucket during the Glorious 39 premiere (and it was a little stale)
Coolest Q&A: with director of Chloe, Atom Egoyan. He was so open and funny and adorably personable.
Biggest surprise hit: Beautiful Kate, by first time director Rachel Ward. Have to thank my mom for picking this one. It was a great little Australian movie with a lot of notable performances, an original story, and a beautiful setting. Here is a picture of my mom with a up-and-comer Sophie Rowe from the film:


Celebrity sightings: Sissy Spacek, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, David Kross (from The Reader), Ridley Scott, Eva Green, Bill Nighy, Romola Garai, Julie Christie
Best photo-op: with Lluis Homar, Penelope Cruz's co-star in Broken Embraces. What is not to love about a man from Spain? Me, Lluis and my shiny bag:



New favorite song: the tiff theme song, "I Will Light You Up" by local Toronto band Pilot Speed
Number of visits to Starbucks for coffee: 4
Number of visits to Starbucks for free wifi: 12
World Premieres: 1! - Glorious 39 - red carpet, decked out stars, photogs - coolest part was that the director and actors sat down to watch the entire film with everyone else in the audience (if you can squint hard enough, you can see Bill, Roma, Julie and director Stephen Poliakoff in the photo below)


Films I hope to bring to a/perture: The White Ribbon, Broken Embraces, Beautiful Kate, Chloe, and Same Same but Different
Film I will never in a million years bring to a/perture: The Warrior and the Wolf
Films with the most buzz that I wish I could have seen: Up in the Air, Precious, and A Serious Man

If you would like to learn more about any of the films I've mentioned above check out the official tiff website at www.tiff.net or post some questions and if Jigar lets me back into the blog, I'd be happy to answer them.

P.S. - Thanks Jigs for taking good care of the homefront.