Those who know me are often very surprised when they hear that I’ve never attended TIFF. And I’m not talking a week full of movies. I haven’t seen a single screening… ever. I guess they figure 300+ movies a year just aren’t enough. Truth is, I hadn’t started attending any film festivals until about 5 years ago and up until that point the only film festival I “wanted” to attend was Fantasia in Montreal (which I still haven’t been to).

TIFF has never been really accessible to me. The idea of spending a ton of money on films you know hardly anything about wasn’t within my budget. The idea that getting a package in order to save some money could result in seeing a bunch of movies you don’t want to see if you didn’t get any of your picks didn’t seem tempting either. There’s also the fact that with either school or work, screenings weren’t very convenient timewise.

Well this year I decided to take the plunge. I did some research, talked to like minded film friends (the kind that go every year), and made the decision that I was going to finally go to that monster huge film festival that just so happens to take place in the city I live in.

First step, check out the films and figure out which ones I really want to see and which ones I wouldn’t mind seeing. Next, take those films and put them in a calendar in order to see what is playing when. Since I only purchased a 10 pack it was pretty easy to pick the films I wanted to see. I had to find as many films as I could that were playing on weekends, weeknights and as was already determined, one weekday. Seems Thursday had the most picks playing so that’s the day I took off work.

With all my films mapped out on a calendar and my first pics chosen, I headed down to Nathan Phillips Square to pick up my package. As I work every day of the week, finding a time to get downtown was a bit tricky but I managed to find a timeslot to work it in. For those of us who aren’t out of town but aren’t necessarily downtown either, TIFF can be a little tricky as I quickly learned.