#AdaTIFFmems - A Day in the Life of a TIFF-er

I talk about my extensive blogging, and I talk about all these crazy random adventures I have at TIFF.  Today I'm going to put it all together.

It's partly laziness, partly to prove a point...my friends and I talk about the insanity of the festival, but there's no way to properly convey how nutty/amazing/frantic a day of volunteering and movie-watching can be unless you're there with us - or is there? It would appear that at one point in my life, I sacrificed sleep (look at the time stamp!) to recap in detail some of the things I got up to in a typical day at TIFF - dashing to movies, having private little fan girl moments, socializing with friends, it's all best summed up here by 25 yr old me:

Sunday September 12, 2004 - 2:53 AM

After I left work yesterday I went to Ryerson to get same day tickets for Creep, but their ticketing system was down and I didn’t have time to line up at College Park’s box office. So it was mad coordination with Tina, she had to come to the Elgin to pick up vouchers to go get us tickets. Poor girl, she had no clue where she was going.

It’s always good to be back at the Elgin, most of the same reps are back except Shane :(  I show up 10 mins late and find I’ve got two shadow captains (new captains)… uh ok, I’ve never had shadow captains before, but it was fine. The volunteers were a good bunch too  :)

First film up was Don McKellar’s Childstar, Don McKellar, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and some other talent came. Maggie Cheung (whom I love, and who was Don McKellar’s co-star in Clean) came to see to the film, I wasn’t expecting to see her so it took me a couple of seconds to realize who she was. She’s shorter and has darker skin than I thought. Best part was, limo door opens and it’s Brendan Fehr!   He’s tall, in a blue suit, and every bit as hot as he looks on TV! *drool* He steps off the carpet to get someone standing behind me (aka the human barricade) then squeezes past to get back down the carpet.

At break time we do a sushi run (it must be noted Sushiman has excellent shrimp tempura sushi) so I’m sitting in the green room tearing a pack of soy sauce when Alex the Captain Liaison appears at the door! I haven’t seen this guy since last year, our schedules have not jived at all and we keep forgetting to email each other.  He did leave me a number this time ha ha

Second film was Crash, and that was the huge film of the night… like talent galore.  so here’s Ada in her dressy platform sandals trying to balance and hold the autograph hounds back as Sandra Bullock steps out of her car. SO many autograph hounds last night, I’m surprised no one hit me with a magazine or clipboard, I probably had blue sharpie in my hair.  Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraiser, Don Cheadle, Jennifer Esposito, etc. all came. Matt Dillon looks good, Brendan Fraiser just looked over the hill.

While I was standing on the carpet (and this happens all the time with ppl walking by and recognizing me) J.P., a former rep of the varsity walked by! He spotted me first and came up to talk to me, I was surprised he remembered me! We only worked together one year and I’ve only seen him once or twice since. But he’s in a show now that going to be touring China, etc. So it was cool to see him.

After the shift was done I called Alex as promised and it turned out he had an extra ticket to the Schmooze party and wanted me to come, but I already had tickets to Creep…  I did go meet up with him at 2 Carlton and we went to Mick E. Fynn’s for a beer.  I so needed one after that shift I’d just had.

I caught up a bit with Alex and then went to change in the washroom of the bar. Ha ha, yeah, I’m just living out of my backpack this week, there’s always one or two changes of clothes and an extra pair of shoes in there at a given time. It’s madness, I know.

Went to meet up with Tina to go into Creep. Because I was so late, J was already somewhere inside. We were saying it was going to be impossible to find him, but I tried anyway, and lo and behold, there he was waving to me as I was walking up and down the aisles looking for him!  Hence we all go to sit together after all.

The movie was a real gorefest, about was lurks in the Tube when you find yourself locked in there after missing the last train. It was pretty great, I was always expecting the worst so I didn’t jump and scream much. It just got really gory and made me cringe. J was trying to be funny by trying to grab my leg to scare me, but he didn’t time it that well, so I just hit him haha.  Anyway, it was your typical midnight madness film, Franka Potente was great as usual, there’s just something about her…

After the film Tina couldn’t stay for the Q & A, she was concerned about missing her last subway home. She said her good byes and I replied “you’re going to catch the last train? It was nice knowing you Tina!” Hmmm, come to think of it, I haven’t heard from her today…

The director was a reasonably young British guy named Christopher Smyth with the wicked British humour, he was pretty nervous, but interesting to listen to nonetheless.  All in all, I would recommend this film under the right settings…  

J and I are walking out of Ryerson and talking when I notice Valesca next to us, so we started talking to her too. She had seen 9 films in two days!!  That girl is just hardcore! (I saw her again today actually and today she saw four films)

I get home (definitely no party for Ada), watched some of the festival highlights on cable 10 (it’s alarming the number of times I see myself on camera), fall into bed, sleep past my alarm for the 2nd day in a row, and woke up at 9:05am. Eep… I jumped in the shower, threw my dress on and ran out the door. I got back to the Elgin at 9:55am and the reps weren’t even there yet! Some of the volunteers showed up early so we had volunteers there for a while, but no reps. I thought that was funny. Arrisa was the first one there, so we just sat around catching up.

Today was much calmer, the only thing that sucked was standing in the heat at the top of the red carpet with the sun beating down on us. We had to wait forever because Jeremy Irons & Joseph Fiennes were soooo late. I don’t even know where Joseph Fiennes’ car stopped, all I see is Hunter escorting them down the sidewalk and onto the carpet. 

After the shift, I decided to walk up to the College Park box office to say hi to Mel. When I got there, she was talking to J who was there to buy tickets for Dead Birds. So that worked out pretty well. I walked back down Yonge with him when he left. He was meeting Rochelle and then they were going down to line up at RTH for House of Flying Daggers for Mel and I.

Over in the RTH rush line, J, Rochelle, and Mel had been given free tickets but they still held my spot for me as I was last to arrive, which was really nice. Eventually some guy gave me a free ticket too!

So I saw the film, then went home. Alex had called wanting to do something again, but I was too tired.

Ok, time for bed again then back to the Elgin in the morning!