For the third year in the row — overlapping with the pandemic, obviously — I did not attend TIFF. I’d maintained an 18-year streak prior to that, even though I had fallen way off my take-a-week-of-vacation-and-see-thirty-films peak. What surprised me was that, well, TIFF surprised me. It’s not like I considered attending and then decided not to; it’s that I basically didn’t think about it until I saw tweets about people arriving for it.

No doubt it had a lot to do with my work schedule, but clearly it’s no longer a significant annual milestone lurking in my brain. But as I think about it, I realize I miss it. I miss the book. I miss the winnowing down of good options. I miss the buzz. I miss Q&As. I even miss the lineups.

Will I have the brainspace for #TIFF23 next year? I genuinely hope so.