Vancouver filmmaker Mina Shum, one of the darlings of the 1994 Toronto festival with her feature film Double Happiness, first hit tiff in 1993 with her short Me, Mom and Mona, and created a buzz again in 1997 with her feature Drive, She Said.

1. The audiences: I’m happy if one person laughs at my jokes, but to hear a theatre full of cheer is just too good.

2. The excess: When premiering my short Me, Mom and Mona in 1993, I learned about the excess of film festival parties. Steve Hegyes (my producer) taught me to just leave by unfinished beer instead of downing it. He said, ‘You can always get a new one, it’s free.’ I don’t even really like beer that much, but at the festival I’m found drinking it. Don’t ask me why.

3. The people watching: When John Cusack passed me and Sandra Oh in the press hall, he turned around to check us out – up and down. We returned the favor.

4. The films: Where else in the world can you go from the premiere of the newest Hollywood blockbuster drama to a feature-length Jon Jost film where the end credits are 20 minutes long?

5. Nervous stomach: Since my visits to the festival have been attached to the harrowing feat of premiering a new film, I can’t eat for the entire day. At the premiere of Double Happiness, I remember finally being able to eat again after all the screenings were finished. I went to the bank at Queen and Spadina, withdrew my last $100 to buy dinner, and when I was paying the bill I opened my wallet and realized I had left the money in the atm.

6. The filmmakers: Talking to filmmakers brings me great joy. For one thing, only other filmmakers understand my little obsessions. I’m not exactly going to talk to my parents about analog vs. digital, but this can be the stuff of great conversations at the festival schmooze.

7. Clarity: Standing in the middle of the Canadian filmmaker’s party in 1993 at the Montana restaurant, I turned to a guy I just met and challenged him to talk for five minutes without losing eye contact. It was our way of dealing with the rubber-necking at these parties; the continual brush-off as whomever you’re speaking to looks for someone else more important to talk to.

David and I succeeded in our challenge and have built a beautiful friendship based on that one moment of clarity.

8. Dancing – at Harbourfront: For two years in a row, the deejay put on ac/dc’s Back in Black and then Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. Dancing was another way to get away from the schmoozing.

9. Family: One year, another filmmaker pal and I crashed after the closing party at a friend’s apartment. We actually passed out drunk (on free beer, no doubt). The next morning we went to the awards breakfast with our hungover faces and proceeded to accept prizes for our individual films.

10. Walking: To clear my head I would walk from theatre to theatre, from party to party. Often there was a breeze. And sometimes silence. I remember once seeing green in the night sky. *