Memories of Leonard Cohen, Bono and Tommy Chong

1 Comments POSTED: August 24, 2006 10:08 | By: Thom Powers
LeonardCohen[1].jpgLeonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (right) was one of the doc hits from last year's Festival. That year concluded Sean Farnel's glorious six year stint as TIFF's documentary programmer. Now he serves as programmer for Toronto's Hot Docs festival, held in the spring. Here, Farnel looks back at his years with TIFF...

SEAN FARNEL:
If I actually had a memory left after years of frying my synapses watching a few hundred docs each summer,  maybe unearthing some golden nugget from Real to Reel yore wouldn't be so painful.

It's all fragments. I remember  unexpectedly crying in the dark several times as audiences cheered docs that had moved me months before, then having to get it together for the Q&A. I have a slightly soft memory of seeing both of The Yes Men whip out their schlongs at Q&As.

Star f**ker that I am, how could I forget introducing Neil Young as Bernard Shakey, or standing on stage beside Bono as he waxed rhapsodic about Leonard Cohen.  I recall, twice, co-directors having nasty spats through the Festival. Was it a fever dream,  or did I once awake to my clock radio, news blaring, and a story about a TIFF programmer, me, being threatened with death by evisceration for selecting Casuistry: The Art of Killing A Cat? 

I definitely remember meeting a lot of wonderful, inspiring, lovely, sexy, smart, broke filmmakers, doc subjects, producers,  media folk, sales agents, publicists and the Dude. I definitely don't remember what exactly the Dude does. I also don't quite remember smoking a joint with Tommy Chong. Mostly, though, I remember all the great docs, the thrill of being there as the form exploded into mainstream consciousness, the excitement at the chance that some of these films would change peoples lives, and the reality that they did change mine.

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