Kerri Huffman Festival widow I've attended the festival twice as a journalist, and I also worked it twice as a publicist for a film company. I think because I've been through it, it makes me a little more patient -- not a lot more patient -- in understanding the crazy hours and the demands that are placed on my husband, Steve [Gravestock, TIFF's manager of festival programming]
I find the hardest thing is actually not during the festival, but the month and a half leading up to it. It's summer, and where I work now, the summer is less busy and I'd like to go out at night and sit on the patio. Of course, Steve's always working. I see him only on Saturdays, but other than that I become what's called a Festival Widow. I go home from work, I eat alone all week long, and I rarely see him. When he is home, he's literally watching videos all night long -- I'll go down at 4 in the morning and he's still at it.
Life during the festival is weird enough because I work at the University of Toronto and there's an energy there that has to do with the start of the school year. So I go to work and it's very hectic.
But then I go home and get all dressed up and go to the festival, and for all the unhappy parts, there are some really great moments. I get the inside scoop on what films to see. And then I get to go to cocktail parties and dinners that Steve hosts for his directors, and I meet these interesting people who I'd never in a million years get to meet otherwise. A couple of years ago, we had drinks with Jean-Luc Godard. He is such an imposing figure and everyone was starstruck and nervous that they would say something stupid.
Everyone wants to know if I see any stars at these parties, and I do, but you get used to it -- certainly I think the people who work at the festival get used to it. Once I was at a party that was packed with movie stars, and it was only when I saw [the Toronto Blue Jays']Carlos Delgado that my knees just started to shake.
Because I'm a writer and not in the film industry, it's not all business talk. And I think they appreciate it, too, that I'm not quizzing them: "When is your film opening? Who have you spoken to? Did you sell it today?" In the past, I spent one opening-night party talking about literature with Brian de Palma. The other night I had dinner with Baltasar Kormakur [director of The Sea and 101 Reykjavik] and we were talking about horses. I rode growing up, and he owns horses, and he said, "Well, come in the summer, and you can ride horses across Iceland." In real life, that sort of thing doesn't happen that often! Kerri Huffman spoke to Rebecca Caldwell.