Lincoln Bound From Toronto

In about nine hours or so, we’ll be winging our way back to Lincoln, Nebraska, having just finished up our tour of this year’s 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. It’s a shame that we’ll miss the last two days of the fest, but we’re also ready to go home. This year’s fest was quite exhausting, partially because we also tried to do some sightseeing in addition to the festival — which just left us worn out and I don’t think we ever quite recovered from all of the walking (though we got some lovely pictures).

Heading to a film festival, you only think about the time you’ll actually spend with your butt planted in a theatre chair. But you don’t think about the time you’ll spend standing in line, or the time you’ll spend hoofing it from theatre to theatre (though thank God for that wonderful public transportation — I don’t think Toronto folks realize how good they have it), and so on. Suffice to say, there’s much more activity involved in attending a film festival than just watching movies, and I think that was impressed upon us the hard way.

As always, one of the real thrills of the fest — or of any festival, for that matter — are all of the people you meet. This year, I was fortunate enough to meet some of the finest film bloggers currently writing today: J. Robert Parks, Darren Hughes, Doug Cummings, Rob Davis, Michael Guillen, Russell Lucas, Ken Morefield, Michael S. Smith, and Girish Shambu.

All of us met early on for a communal Ethiopian dinner, which was great fun, if only to put faces to names, e-mail addresses, and online monikers. And it was always great to see familiar faces waiting in line, bump into them at random screenings, and have quick post-film discussions (many thanks to Doug and J. Robert for being sympathetic to my Tsai Ming-liang complaints).

I’m still working through a batch of reviews for Twitch. I did a poor job of managing my time this year, and so I fell way behind on my films, so I’m slogging through the list. I’m hoping to be all caught up by the time Monday rolls around. Additionally, there are several other fest-related blog entries that will hopefully be appearing in the meantime.

Oh, and finally, one great big “thank you” to Todd for letting Renae and I crash at his place. Unfortunately, we had little time to hang out this year, as our schedules were so different this year. It always felt great to stumble through his door at some godforsaken hour, our eyes bleary from reading subtitles all day and bodies aching from all of the walking. Suffice to say that, should Lincoln ever gets a world-class international film festival, our spare bedroom is already reserved.