TIFF Memories

After pouring through the TIFF 'Your blogs', I've been fascinated by hearing all the stories of the past and the building of anticipation for this year. Coming in this year I thought of myself as a bit of a veteran but then I read this post at Hana's Dreaming and well, it will be a while before I can say it's my 17th festival. Kudo's to you!

Now, that got me thinking about memories of the festival and the most recent ones come to mind. In the past five years three of those have been spent working at the festival and believe me there are many memories during that time. 2007 marks the first year that I'm going where I have no other time obligations for the duration of those early September days. However, I think one of my fondest memories was my first time at TIFF.

I remember there was a huge crowd. I had no idea what we were seeing. No clue. I don't even remember having a ticket (I'm sure I did though!), but just waving through the crowds in the Cumberland and everything felt so wild. It felt more like theatre than film. There were reserved seats - in a movie theatre! Who could they be for? I don't think at this time I really knew what a film festival was, and back then it was still called The Festival of Festivals. When the crowd finally settled down and the film started rolling - it was in black and white. What is this I thought? I thought it was going to be something new. But it was new, and hilarious. One of the funniest movies I've seen. It was Kevin Smith's Clerks. At the time it was such a perfect fit for comedy for me as I was working retail and had me in stitches from laughter. I'm not sure when that would have been but seeing as imdb.com has it at 1994 were are talking quite a while ago. Who knew it would be the beginning of what is happily becoming a yearly ritual?