Director Ross McElwee brought this documentary Bright Leaves (right) to TIFF in 2003. Here he recalls his experiences as a filmgoer at that festival...

ROSS MCELWEE:
I was invited to the 2003 Toronto Film Festival with my documentary, Bright Leaves.  Two moments stand out for me. When I attend the Toronto International Film Festival,  I try to see films that I assume will have little chance of theatrical distribution in the US. Having read an interesting description of the Belgian filmmaker  Thomas de Thier's  Des Plumes dans la tete [Feathers in My Head], I decided to take a chance. I was not disappointed.  It was remarkable - so imaginative, so inventive, so whimsical and tragic - with  the emotional veracity of documentary.

Anyway, after the screening and Q & A with the director was over, I wandered out and noticed that although the film had been screened to a full house,  Thomas de Thier was momentarily  standing in the foyer pretty much alone.  I walked up to him, told him how much I liked his film, and asked him if he wanted to go have a cup of coffee.  We sat on a patio and talked for an hour about documentary and fiction filmmaking.   It was, in its own quiet and personal way, a quintessential Toronto Festival moment for me.  I had taken a chance on seeing this film, and ended up having a memorable conversation with the filmmaker. 

At the other end of the glitz spectrum was the Gala screening of Anne Fontaine's Nathalie, after which an extraordinarily beautiful Emmanuelle Beart stood on stage, clad in slinky, glittery white, and, in halting French-accented English, said, "If you do not like my performance, do not say anything about this when  you are leaving the theater because I may hear you and I am a very fragile creature." I obeyed.