Matthew Hays is a frequent contributor to Playback, the Montreal Mirror, The Globe and Mail and The Guardian. He joined the Toronto International Film Festival as a programmer in ’08.

When I landed a job as a programmer in the Canadian feature section at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, it seemed like a pretty obvious fit. As a journalist, I’d been covering the fest for 15 years, and had been extensively covering the cinemas of Canada and Quebec.

The job, as one might expect, involves seeing a lot of Canadian features. In a 10-week period, we screened approximately 250 features. That’s a lot of movies.

I knew there would be tough moments; I was warned to take detailed notes, as impressions of films are tricky to recall when you’re digesting that much celluloid. But the toughest part came when the series of meetings were done, and our final choices had been made. Then the fateful letters went out.

Naturally, there were moments of elation for the filmmakers whose projects would receive that crucial boost in publicity, promotion and the ability to connect with an eager audience.

But there was something I wasn’t entirely prepared for – the level of hurt for those filmmakers whose projects did not make the final short list. Some of the e-mails and phone calls I got were rife with pain and disappointment – people who were understandably upset that their films, which they had spent years creating, would not end up screening at the country’s premiere film event.

Genuine expressions of regret and remorse didn’t seem to do much good – these filmmakers had not been accepted, and that was not going down so well.

For me, that marked the biggest shift going from a journalist to a programmer. I was used to writing about Canadian films I liked; helping them to find the publicity they desperately needed (and rarely got, especially in English Canada). Now I was being reproached for having played a part in denying numerous films what the filmmakers considered their rightful place in the sun.

Filmmakers need to keep the aforementioned stats in mind: given how many films we look at, there’s simply no way we can showcase everything.

They also need to keep in mind that TIFF isn’t out to hurt anyone. The fest has expanded its operations continually to work to connect audiences with Canadian cinema (the work of the Film Circuit is particularly noteworthy).

At the same time, I understand that swallowing that pill is, as the cliché goes, especially bitter.

Filmmakers must also keep in mind that while TIFF has proven itself as a crucial launch point, it isn’t the only way to get your film noticed and seen. One title that has stood out is Up the Yangtze, Yung Chang’s excellent doc feature that, despite not being screened at TIFF, ultimately ended up on the TIFF Group’s Top 10 list, and has proven one of the biggest success stories of the past year.

This past winter I was approached to write a chapter in a text book for journalists. My entry in The Bigger Picture, which has just come out, is about freelancing for as many different places as possible. I titled it ‘The Perfect Pitch or: How I Learned to Love Rejection.’ Journalism and filmmaking can be quite similar vocations. It’s of little solace to people, but it’s something we all have to learn to deal with, at least some of the time.