Bon Projection
or
Debby Downer

So I decided I may as well just lay out the rest of the Montreal photos and recap little things about the trip because, well, it was four-five more days really and getting into the nitty gritty is too much.

First, all our places to stay fell through so I hobbled through the city going hotel to hotel to find an open room. After about 5 I found a place with a view like this:


But an okay room that looked like this:
The kicker though was the fact that this normal seeming hotel room had a ridiculous ceiling. It looked like this: So it ended up that all the lost souls of the day, because Sabreena slept through her train, amounted to Adina, Gorrman and I.

So we all slept in a double-ish bed and tried our best to will the bedbugs away from us. Oh also we got 10000 evil eyes from the other douches staying at the hotel who clearly wanted to beat us up including one wearing a shirt that just said "You'll do". Classy. Somehow this might have been the nicest place we stayed though.
Saturday we started actual festival stuff which included hanging out on closed off St.Catherine's street where there was a giant screen for movies. We spent most of our time in a lounge with free beer. Yes there was free beer. It was amazing. Terrible beer but I mean , come on. Also we got the chance to mingle. I think we only really talked to two people who didn't later turn out to be insane or terrible filmmakers but we felt pretty jetsetting for like the first day or so.

Oh also, after the Jon Voight thing the celebrities really dropped off. We missed Sophie Marceau. I did see Mia Maestro (she was a juror for the festival) walking down the street with no shoes on. She was like 4 foot 2. Alias' sister my ass.
Here's Chris and Adina with free beers on the free beer balcony in front of one of the big theaters which showed all the Quebecois movies. This was probably moments before someone accosted us with their cards and tried to hit on Adina.
Some semi-douchey writer from Vancouver convinced Chris and Gorrman they could get deals like anywhere with their passes so they wore them all the time. I was embarrassed by this. Then I stopped caring and wore mine all the time. I got no extra respect and was even hassled for free things I deserved...goddamn festival.
We partied at some bar that was seemingly just a giant patio that went on for like 3 blocks. It was really the only time I paid for drinking. Never having a place to stay/being unable to walk properly really deflated the fun out of drinking. Thus I was a total douche to everyone. Also, I complained constantly about every situation. I'd like to think i was saying what everyone was thinking...but for the first few days I even annoyed myself. We replaced drinking/tourism/normal fun with going to constant free movies (I saw 20 movies/short programs in 4 days) and I ended up bitching less and enjoying myself.

I wonder if this was a product of all my plans falling apart and fucking me over or if this is just what planning an adult, actual trip is like. Constant stress. Not a vacation at all. Hmmm. Am I destined to only enjoy shitty spa vacations where everything is planned? will you buy me one so I can find out?
There was free internet at another lounge. I guess I thought it was noteworthy. Maybe for the movie posters.
Our movie showed at the cool home of the National Film Board in Montreal. What a good name.
The theater was very small, like 100 seats maybe, but the sound was balls out amazing. Like the quality of a professional mixing studio. Also the theater was sold out/standing room most shows so it made you feel fancy. My movie went over really well, all of ours did, but I don't think we won any awards since nobody has texted me or anything. Or maybe I'm headed to Cannes and just don't know yet. Yeah, it's probably that.

We took a party photo. I dont know why. To mock something. Chris bought a touristy shirt with swears on it and wore it every day.
Remember the giant screen? faintly in the left you can see Das Boot playing on it. We also watched a large portion of Midnight Cowboy. Just playing on the damn street. It was pretty funny. Das Boot i think is rated R and Midnight Cowboy is X and yet there were tons of kids watching. Montreal you are ridiculous.
We also went to this horror fest thing every night. Just another movie basically but a terrible world-horror offering. It was in this amazing old theater though AND it had been properly converted with cup-holders. Goddamn! as you can see I've really run out of interesting photos because I was in like 5 movies a day.

but there was the murder hotel!
Gorrman and Sabreena chose to stay near the university in a weird hotel with like 3 rooms that's a converted apartment. I decided because I was a) afraid, b) it was too far for my damn leg and c) it had cats so my face swelled up to return to my original hostel instead but I spent one night there and tried to record it as best as possible. I took the photo above to give you an idea of what it was lit like at the time because that's 1000 times creepier than my flash makes it out to be.
This photo was in our room. it was like the last supper but in a crystal pyramid. and jesus was blonde with like short hair. and there's a see-thru nipple man above them. Apparently Sabreena at one point just took it down because it was weird.

Also this room didn't have a door but did have a mirror with a padlock on it which, if pushed revealed the room. amazing. Inside all that locked it was a little latch that could easily be opened from outside.
The "owner/manager" of the place slept in the next room, on the couch. There is one of the like 8 cats that lives there/goes in every room/makes me die.
It's funny because all these photos look homey and nice but imagine this place is up 100 sketchy stairs, in the dark, smelled the cheapest gas station air-fresheners and was run by a grizzled looking 50 year old man.
There were old lady knick-nacks and lots of photos of an old lady so it was hard to ignore the fact that this was pretty clearly like the guy's mom's place...and she died...probably in our bed...and he turned it into a "hotel"...

where have I heard this before...
Oh Adina didn't have a place to sleep so she slept in the space between our bed and the wall on top of my shoes. Her trip was probably 1000 times worse than mine but she complained less. I hope when I grow up I can be like her.
Here's the final photo with the final free beers. By this point they had separated us into "real filmmaker" and "students/terrible filmmaker" rooms so the beer kind of was pissing us off. I think you can see it in Gorrman's eyes.

so yes. trip is done. I'm going to do two more blogs on it. One reviewing all the movies I saw in one line. One trying to express what I learned from a business perspective.

These blogs probably wont get written.