Toronto director Patricia Rozema is a tiff veteran who first showed up at the festival, film in hand, in 1985 with Passion: A Letter in 16mm, followed in 1987 by the acclaimed opening film I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, in 1991 with the Perspective Canada opener White Room, and in 1999 with Mansfield Park.

Toronto International Film Festival? Which one? The party, the business convention, the startle of seeing actors you’ve always been a little transfixed by, up close? The shock when they get spinach stuck in their teeth and their skin looks bad in this light. Or heartbreakingly perfect.

The chance to lock eyes with great beauty (and the knowledge that that is rare, given that their attention is so dispersed, so demanded, precious).

The meeting of filmmakers whose work you’ve never seen, let alone heard of; the open-mouthed wonder of meeting some creators/makers of original and heretofore unimagined power. The cliches dressed up in sexy new clothes. The speechlessness before an accomplished artist demonstrating the greatest wisdom through exquisite craft.

The almosts, the in-betweens. The glow around a few big-brained, big-hearted people. Or the fragile filmmakers who mortgaged the house, threatened the economic stability of a young family, and nobody’s much interested. (Not to mention the implied majority of filmmakers/producers at home with several reels in their basement that can’t get seen. Reels the selectors dismissed or actively disliked. The knowing that that utter rejection could be around anyone’s corner.)

The coolness that is fear, the ecstatic warmth that is fear. The subtle chorus of ‘Hey. Look at me. Look at me. I’m okay, right? I’ve got something, don’t I?’ The wanting to rise above all that.

The young filmmakers who are on a roll, feeling fine, trying not to fall into the competitive spirit, trying to stick with the reasons that fueled the fire in the first place.

The middle-career filmmakers who just want to strike a mutually beneficial, solid, satisfying deal.

Those who have seen too many one-way deals in the past. The people who always assumed fame is their due, and then got it. The people who always assumed fame is their due and then didn’t.

Those who wonder what they’re doing at a festival, wandering around another hotel lobby, not knowing anyone, sitting alone a lot. Seeing films that don’t inspire them. Or seeing films that are changing their life – or somewhere in between.

The people who’ve only ever had their eye on the prize and never really thought about their own work, about what they are really saying. They just spout lines that they think will lure the most people possible.

The film industry critic trying to discern whether the digital revolution just describes a new kind of ‘pencil’ drawing slightly different kinds of motion pictures or a profound seismic shift in the quality of our connection with each other.

Money manipulators circling around the Internet: Is it just a new distribution system, or is it going to eliminate copyright? Is it just the Wild West where staggering fortunes can be made and lost that is soon to be tamed? The people frantically searching for a map of the tributary system of the new money flow.

Those panels where we worry about the loss of cinemas, the disintegration of old films. The lamenting and heralding of the demystification of filmmakers that results from there being a proliferation of filmmakers of every class, color and orientation. A constant conversation. The constant not saying much.

Watching the jockeying for position. The clear-eyed critics whose writing has shone light on my own work for me, both painfully and pleasantly. The other ones, the desperate joiner critics, who know it’s easier to sound cool when you are always cool about the work. Or the babes babbling, the boys flexing, the pheromones on overtime. Trying to get in good with whomever, for I’m not sure what reason.

The skimming on the surface of connection, of contact. Surfing and never knowing. Even those you know you can’t settle down into. The constant sensation that there is probably an event somewhere, some little gathering peopled with people who have done something I truly admire but I’m not there. Not invited. The desire to convince myself that my soul is more whole without all that desperate scattering. The display, in some, of a huge capacity to engage, a terrifying and beautiful appetite for humanity. The hustle, that smell of ‘What can you do for me?’ lurking everywhere.

That other strong, fresh wind that convinces me that the eternal striving for excellence will always be alive somewhere at sometime in the world. The introduction of terrifying beauty. Of films so pure, so honest. The films that tell us what we as humans hunger to say to each other. How we choose to sing, cry, and wonder together.

Festivals past

Which Toronto International Film Festival? 1985 – when I gave hundreds of people postcards for Passion: A Letter in 16mm and barely managed to fill half of a small Cumberland theatre? 1987 – when I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing was the opening film and I tried not to let my voice tremble? 1991 – when I found out that my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer an hour before White Room opened the Perspective Canada section? Or maybe last year – in the Elgin, showing my friends, my family Mansfield Park and feeling, more than ever, that I was home. *