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Movies & TV

FINAL REPORT FROM MONTREAL

Rating: NNNNN


Ten favorite things about the Festival of New Cinema
and Media

10. My hotel room is nicer than my apartment. I
thought for a while that my hotel room was bigger than
my apartment, but that was a trick of light. My hotel
is also built on a hill, which means that if I count
from the main lobby, I’m on the fifth floor, but if I
count from the Sherbrooke Street plaza entrance, I’m
on the third floor.

9. Montreal weather somewhere between briskly cool and
brutally cold, which means that one never sits in a
movie thinking ‘I wish I was at the beach.’. Well, one
might, but one can’t act on it.

8. Most of the local population seems to speak
English. Especially after they hear me speak French.

7. Having been away from Montreal since 1989, I
discover that it’s changed rather less than Toronto in
13 years. Despite the increase of chain stores along
St. Catherine ­ and the disappearance of the Complexe
Desjardins, the shopping mall-hotel complex across
from the Place des Arts ­ there is something
reassuring in seeing that while Famous Players may
have opened up one of their megaplexes on St.
Catherine, it’s directly across from a strip club.

6. On the one hand, no press screenings during the
festival. On the other, I’ve managed tickets to
everything I’ve wanted.

5. Festival not dominated by publicity machinery ­
there is no hotel loaded with publicists sending one
video screeners and demanding that one interview the
director of a Spanish film that you didn’t like in the
first place. Or maybe there is, and they don’t know
that I’m here.

4. Can’t find a Starbucks anywhere in the
neighbourhood.

3. This is the single most relaxed Festival I’ve been
to since the Atlantic Film Festival in 1984. Sure
there’s hot tickets, but one doesn’t seem to see the
sort of frenzy one sees in the big festivals. Of
course, there’s also a shortage of annoying offsite
media (and, yes, I’m aware of the inherent irony in me
making that statement.). Whether public or
industry-oriented, there seems to be a certain point
of growth where the gigantism of the event takes over
from the actual films. This festival is just about the
right size ­ enough films and screenings that people
who wish to attend can, but not so many films that it
becomes THE event in town

2. No galas. No competitions. Just movies. It doesn’t
matter, really, if they’ve been at other festivals.
After all, if one has not seen something, it’s a new
movie.

1. Festival headquarters a leisurely stroll from
Schwarz’s Deli

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