How to Survive Your First Toronto International Film Festival

I’m a huge film buff. In fact, spending hours in a cool, dark theater watching the latest Coen brothers’ masterpiece or Audrey Tautou film gets me just as excited as jetting off to Iceland or Barbados. That’s why spending this past weekend as a bright-eyed newbie at the Toronto International Film Festival was undoubtedly one of my top experiences this year.

As with any first—first date, first job, first time eating piping hot Shanghai soup dumplings—you’re bound to do some things right, but you’ll also make some mistakes. Here’s what we learned during our first trip to Toronto’s prestigious cinematic event.

If you can’t come for the whole festival, come to the first half.

The Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF for short, occurs every September and generally lasts about 10 days. Let’s be honest: unless you’re in the film industry, cobbling together enough vacation days to attend the whole shebang can be pretty tricky. So how do you prioritize when to go?

For our first time at TIFF, we decided to attend the last weekend of the 2016 festival (September 15-18). The reason for this was purely logistical: our hotel, the Hyatt Regency Toronto, was booked during the first part of the festival. While it may have been a cheaper time to go—a ticket package for the last weekend at TIFF ran $85 for 6 films—we found that most of our screenings didn’t have Q&As with directors or celebs afterwards. Plus, some films, like Snowden, didn’t have any screenings left by the time we arrived. If we could do it again, we’d go for the first weekend, when the action really gets going.

Maximize your time standing in line.

As ticket holders, we generally arrived in line about an hour before screenings. To some, this can be a tedious time (Moooom, are we there yet?), but it’s actually crucial to your festival-going experience. Those smiling, elderly Canadian ladies or those shaggy-haired teenagers who won’t put down their phones? They’re actually a great resource to exchange information about what films are worth seeing and what you should skip. Our fellow cinephiles had some vital recommendations for us, not least of which was to “pack a lunch and eat it while standing in line.” Granted, those advice-givers were seeing five film in one day (what??), but if you’re running around with only an hour between films like we were, snacking in line can be the difference between a pleasant experience and a dreadful, hangry one. Remember: a popcorn-based diet is only sustainable for so long before you crash and burn!

Plan, plan, plan…

Attending a film festival requires a lot of planning, whether it’s deciding on what dates you can attend or selecting which films to see. Case in point: TIFF 2016 had nearly 400 films to choose from, which would make any rational person’s head spin. Ironically, though, one of the biggest mistakes we made at TIFF didn’t have to do with movies, but rather with not making dinner reservations in advance. Picture this: you’re high off the magic of seeing your third film of the day, and you’re ravenous. You wander from restaurant to restaurant, only to find that—duh!—all the good places are booked on Friday and Saturday nights. You get so desperate for food that you settle for a Starbucks chicken sandwich for a meal. Yeah, don’t ever admit that you did that: it’s totally avoidable by just planning in advance.

…But don’t be afraid to be flexible, either.

We were adamant about getting into the Friday night screening of La La Land. This was not without reason; this movie, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, went on to capture the Grolsch People’s Choice Award. (This is kind of a big deal. Heard of Slumdog Millionaire or 12 Years A Slave? Yeah, they won this award at TIFF—which is based on popular vote by festival goers—and wound up snagging the Best Picture Oscar.) You guessed it, though—we couldn’t get in. Unfazed, we headed out for drinks at BarChef instead and wound up having a great night. You never know what you’ll see in Toronto!

Save some time to explore Toronto’s food and drink scene.

Because our planning time was rushed this year, I didn’t set aside the time I normally do to research restaurants and bars. One of the perks of knowing travel bloggers, though, is that they can save you in moments like these! Brock of Backpack with Brock provided some great recs for his home base, including the Latin American and Caribbean food in Kensington Market.

We only made it to one cocktail bar on this trip (gasp), but it was worth it. Toronto’s BarChef reminded me of The Aviary in Chicago: whimsical, sensory creations in a dimly lit but lively space. We sampled two drinks on the “Modernist Cocktails” section of their menu. The first, called Sailor’s Mojito, contained Sailor Jerry rum, mint, fresh lime, vanilla syrup, a mojito sphere, fresh lime, and vanilla air. It also had something called “beach essence,” which basically entailed us endlessly sniffing this vapor from a bowl (it’s not drugs, promise). The other drink, named Oceanic, reminded me of fresh bed linens… in a very good way. Suffice it to say that, while there’s a lot going on in these drinks, they are definitely worth a stop.

Get used to drinking wine with a straw.

It hurts me to write this Whatever, you all know that we’re wine snobs; the idea of putting an ice cube into a glass of red wine makes us visibly recoil. However, I get the importance of keeping movie theaters pristine for the next lady or gent sitting in our seats. Yes, you can eat and drink in your seat while watching the movie, but if you want some vino, consider avoiding spillage by going the sipping via straw route. (Plus, this picture just makes me laugh audibly.)

Bonus: What TIFF 2016 films do we recommend?

Though this post is mainly about tips for surviving your first TIFF experience, I’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this year’s films at all. Between the four of us, we saw 9 films over 2.5 days:

• LBJ – Woody Harrelson stars in the titular role as America’s 36th president.
• Loving – This film depicts the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose legal battle paved the way for interracial marriage in Virginia.
• Strange Weather – Holly Hunter gives an emotional performance as a woman in the Deep South seeking vengeance for her son’s suicide.
• The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé – The famous rock band tours Latin America, culminating in a rock concert in Cuba.
• Planetarium – Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp play mediums who meet a rather interesting film director in France. (Note: while not a foreign film, be prepared to read a lot of subtitles!)
• Brain on Fire – Based upon a book of the same name, this film follows the true story of Susannah Cahalan, a New York Post reporter who develops a puzzling illness that nobody seems to be able to identify. Chloe Grace Moretz stars.
• Nocturnal Animals – This deeply haunting film involves an art gallery owner who receives a mysterious manuscript in the mail one day from her ex-husband.
• The Secret Scripture – This film centers around woman who keeps a journal during her stay in a mental hospital. Rooney Mara and Vanessa Redgrave portray the same character at different time points.
• A Quiet Passion – Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City fame channels her acting prowess into the role of Emily Dickinson, the famous 19th-century poet.

And the winner is…

Our personal favorites as a group were LBJ and Nocturnal Animals. Woody Harrelson absolutely nailed his performance as LBJ. In fact, director Rob Reiner revealed that LBJ’s granddaughter approached him after a screening to thank him for the film’s accurate portrayal of the former president. Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal turned in stunning performances in Nocturnal Animals as well. Gyllenhaal, in particular, had to play two vastly different characters that showcased his strong acting chops. The Secret Scripture proved to be my parents’ favorite. Keep an eye out for these films, as most of them will be coming out nationally in the next few months!