TIFF Tickets Are Bought, So Let the Madness Begin – front mezz junkies, Theater News

Frontmezzjunkies reports: Part two of my TIFF planning adventure, where the tickets are purchased, the press screenings are scheduled, and there are still far too many films I want to see

By Ross

Thursday, when tickets went on sale, I sat down with my carefully constructed festival calendar and started turning intentions into actual seats. It was a feverish exercise, as numerous films were sold out before I even had the chance to look at the seating chart. I shuffled my hopefuls around the time slots and kept my spirits high, or at least I tried to, as the whole thing was a complex time map, with every film potentially fitting into numerous places, and one had to be a few steps ahead of the game to win. By the time I was finished with this equivalent of a 403-piece puzzle of a cloudy sky, I had purchased tickets for far more films than I care to admit, and scheduled a whole bunch more for press screenings. I still have one more opportunity next Sunday to press-pass purchase five more films, assuming the ones I want are still available. But I’m not holding my breath. What does all this mean? It means the schedule is already beginning to resemble the kind of September I was anxiously hoping for when I started plotting all of this out.

That plotting was the subject of my recent article, Planning TIFF Is a Film Festival of Its Own, and now comes the part where the planning meets reality. Last year, I think I saw more than 25 films, which was already a fairly ambitious amount of time spent sitting in dark rooms across Toronto. This year, the current calendar is pointing toward something in the neighbourhood of 30 films. Some are locked in with tickets or press screenings. Some are marked as alternatives because TIFF scheduling has a funny way of forcing choices upon you. Others on my list have three question marks sitting in front of them because I am still hoping to find a way into the theatre, whether that means waiting in line for a late cancellation or seeing what the press reps can make happen.

The opening stretch already has me moving quickly. Thursday begins with the Festival’s most difficult choice: either Tender Loving Care at 8:40 in the morning, or Coward at 8:30 am. Both are playing in theaters a few short blocks away from each other, and both are calling my name. Which film I’m leaning toward is a complicated question that seems to change every hour. Both sound like films I could love, but for very different reasons. Whichever one I do get into (because there are no guarantees when it comes to press screenings), I do believe I will be both happy with my choice and disappointed that the other isn’t anywhere else on my list. After that festival Sophie’s Choice, I’ll be leaving just to line up for another, probably a press screening of Fjord in the afternoon. That is, if I can shift a doctor’s appointment.

Friday brings a press screening of Andrew Haigh’s A Long Winter in the morning, which I’m super excited to see. I’m bypassing four other press screenings, three of which I have scheduled in at other times, but one, The Housewife, remains out of reach. Hur Jin-ho’s The Assassin(s) sneaks in that afternoon, followed by live theatre at night. Saturday has Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, rather than Everyone Wants to F*ck Me, which I arranged for the next Saturday, thankfully, followed by a pair of purchased tickets to Being Heumann with my buddy who’s coming in for the festival’s first weekend. That might be it for the day (we are seeing some live theatre that night as well, just like the two previous evenings, so don’t go thinking this theatre junkie is being lazy). Sadly, those two will be it for the first Saturday of the festival, as there were no tickets left for this Andrew Scott fan for his In Conversation With… Seeing his film two days later will have to suffice.

But once again, I’m getting ahead of myself. Sunday is not going to be a day of rest, as this is where the calendar starts looking particularly TIFF-like. I Play Rocky screens for the press in the morning, a choice made because I was able to purchase a ticket for its press screening competitor, Misty Green, for later in the week. I could have done the reverse, but that turned out to be an impossible task. A screening of Babies before the evening choices begin to collapse around us. I am still hoping to find a way into The Debut, Club Kid, or Coward that night, but they were sold out minutes into my purchasing frenzy, and I was left holding tickets to none of them, including Bitter Christmas, the film that was supposed to be the main event for that Sunday with my NYC buddy.

But not all was lost. Monday brings a morning screening of Prima Facie, instead of the screening for Bitter Christmas, because, miraculously, my buddy was able to score a few tickets for a Tuesday afternoon public screening of Almodóvar’s film, saving the day and my buddy’s trip. I did manage to purchase us tickets for both Elsinore and All About Corinne, but I didn’t have the same luck with one of his choices, Neverman.

By Tuesday, our terms of engagement are fully established. I’ll start out with press screenings of Alpha Gang and A Taste for Murder in the morning on my own. Our prized get, Bitter Christmas, takes the afternoon. A press screening of Possible Love arrives in the evening after my buddy heads to the airport (exhausted but hopefully happy with our cinematic adventure), and the highly anticipated Tenzing closes out the night.

Wednesday’s press pool brings me La Bola Negra, YAGA, and Danny Boyle’s Ink into my lap, with a public screening of Neverman squeezed in as my afternoon refresh, and Atonement as my late-night nightcap. Then Thursday starts the press insanity all over again with The Diary of a Chambermaid, moving into Purgatory and Sunburn, that is, if I actually cancel the dentist appointment I foolishly scheduled for this week. That leaves me staring at the possibility that it’s doubtful I’m going to get into Making Waves with Hunter Williams or his YAGA later that evening.

Friday and Saturday are already becoming their own endurance exercise, and thankfully the training that I will experience early that week should be paying off. The Housewife is still on the wish list, but I’m not holding my breath. Two purchases, Misty Green and Up Against It, are booked midday, with Club Kid continuing to hover around the calendar like a sound mix heard in the far-off distance, coming from multiple possible places. But with no ticket in sight, the sound in the air might have to suffice. And I might actually have an early night, when I can eat a decent meal and get a good night’s sleep.

Saturday brings Below and the animated Muyi to the screen, with the much-looked-forward-to Everyone Wants to F*ck Me arriving later that evening. Club Kid, Trash Mountain, and Love of Your Life are still on my wish list, but will probably not make it to my real list for this day. And I may have to become okay with that fact. Sunday races in Run Terry Run in the morning, bumping right up to the possibility of the People’s Choice screening. But one more film awaits me that evening: The Beloved, a last-minute purchase, because why not; it was available, and my adrenaline got the best of me.

Scrolling through the calendar as a whole, I can already see where the exhaustion is going to kick in, and the hunger might take on a larger role than just a supporting one. And then there are the films I wanted but didn’t get. In Conversation with… Andrew Scott, The Debut, Club Kid, The Housewife, Love of Your Life, Making Waves With… Hudson Williams, and Wild Horse Nine are all sitting in that particularly frustrating category of films I have not quite managed to secure. At this point, I am prepared to make a small offering to the TIFF press-pass gods. The problem with several of them is that the press dates conflict with other films already occupying the calendar, which means there is no magical second version of September available to me. I can only be in one screening room at a time. But all luck is not completely lost quite yet. I will still have another chance for this madness to take over my brain. Next Sunday, I am being given the opportunity to press-pass purchase five more films, so the calendar is not finished yet. I suspect neither is the list of things I will suddenly decide I absolutely must see or the list of things I wasn’t able to get into that I really wanted.

That manic uncertainty and disappointment are probably the part of TIFF planning I enjoy the most and am frustrated by equally. I can spend weeks building a schedule, moving films around like pieces of a wildly erratic puzzle, finding alternatives, counting travel time minutes between screenings, and convincing myself that I have finally solved the puzzle, only to discover that the real schedule is the one that unfolds around me. A film I thought was essential might turn out not to fit. Something I barely had on my radar might become the thing everyone is talking about. A late cancellation might open a seat. A conversation in a queue might send me somewhere completely different. The calendar tells me where I am supposed to be. TIFF itself will have plenty of ideas about where I actually end up.

For now, though, the tickets are bought, the press screenings are beginning to take shape, and my September is starting to look very real. Lucky thirteen films are already paid for. A whole bunch more are sitting in the press calendar. A handful have question marks attached to them, weighted down with hope, and there is still one more chance to make five more selections next Sunday. And don’t forget the People’s Choice Award Winner. That might give me the opportunity to see a celebrated film that I didn’t manage to slot in. I may end up with around 30 films this year, or I may discover that TIFF has other plans for me that include a padded cell or a stylish white straitjacket. Either way, the festival is no longer something I am simply planning. It is sitting there in my calendar in yellow-highlighted time slots, waiting for me to get on the first streetcar, walk into the first theatre, find my seat, and let the next film begin.