In my stories I mention my friend Jae (sometimes just "J") a lot. Out of a heap of film geek friends, I would consider him the biggest film geek of them all. He is one of the most knowledgeable guys I know when it comes to movies, pulp novels, and R-rated video games.
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| The time I let Jae hold onto Sachin's bday gift... |
Jae is a long-time TIFF-goer though he's never made the leap into volunteering. Akin to a vampire that doesn't drink blood (I think?), Jae is the most nocturnal person I know (again, that's quite a feat amongst my friends) and therefore loves coming out for many middle of the night chats. Even in years when he hasn't lined up in the overnight line with us, I will sometimes nod off and awake to find Jae sitting next to me talking movies with someone else who isn't sleeping. (Tad creepy? yeah probably)
Well, Jae and I pre-date TIFF just a little. We were highschool classmates, even then he was the biggest film buff that I knew. It wasn't like we both turned 18 and started going to the festival together though, in fact, we actually had a bit of a falling out and weren't in contact for some years.
One of the first times I had a real conversation with Jae again after highschool was when I ran into him in 'festival village', a term invented only in recent years but this was the early 00's equivalent, so we're probably talking Yonge St. near the former Uptown Theatre.
The specifics of the run-in are hazy, but this was aorund the year Ichi the Killer was screening, probably Fulltime Killer as well (so 2001?) Jae was just standing by a lamp post, I stopped and we had a brief conversation about some of the films screening at Midnight Madness before parting ways.
In the years that followed we continued to see each other in and around TIFF, and would team up for rush lines together. That led to more regular contact, until he was one of the boys again. So I guess you could say that TIFF played a significant part in our friendship.
One of the greatest things about Jae is that we have a million photos together so it's a breeze to find a few to post...
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| At a TIFF party... |
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| At Nuit Blanche... |
Another great thing about Jae is that he doesn't really age, so it doesn't matter what year photos I pull, he looks the same in all of them.
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| At a birthday party (mine) |
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