What's the most memorable movie experience of your life? The film that made you laugh the hardest, cry the most, the one that changed your hairstyle, your opinions … or perhaps even your entire life? As part of our Celebration of Cinema, CIFF 2006 introduces Movie Memories. In addition to showcasing international achievements in cinematic storytelling and telling the stories behind the making of these films, this unique program endeavours to recognize the powerful role movies have in shaping the lives of everyday cinemagoers.

Here are some movie memories from fellow film lovers.

The "touchstone" film of my youth is ... without a doubt ET. I grew up in a rural community where going to the movies was a BIG deal. It meant driving to town, to the only movie theatre in the area, or if it was summertime, loading up the gang and heading to the drive-in.

In 1982, I was 5 years old when ET hit the theatre. I remember sitting on my mom's lap the entire movie, terrified of the funny creature hidden in Elliot's closet, but also fascinated with him. In the end, when ET returned to the great beyond, mixed emotions. Happy because he was going "home" ... but also sad for Gertie and Elliot that they had lost a friend. What a great movie!

Susanne Fox
Citytv, Calgary, AB

Hi everybody. I remember the first REAL film I ever saw. It was Gone With the Wind and my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Gellner, forced us to sit through the 3 hour bad boy and I remember having to pretend I didn't like it to avoid a playground beating. Secretly, I was swept away!

Preston Drummond
Opus on 8th

While I'm sure we all have many memorable moments, the most lasting one for me was seeing the very first Star Wars. The memory is not only triggered by the movie which ushered us into a whole new era of film making, but by the movie going experience itself. My kids were very young at the time and it was them who convinced me to go. It was in one of those large old theatres with a screen that never ended. Well from where I sat it never ended as we were in the very first row. My kids insisted. You can image the experience. It was multi sensory to say the least. Screeching kids on both sides and spaceships, new fangled vehicles and creatures the like of which I had never seen before that seemed to surround me and fly right over my head. I had to go see it again to get the story, but I will never forget my first exposure to these movie STARS.

Dan Chugg
Alberta Film Commissioner

The first movie I ever saw was Disney's "Robin Hood." It was great. I learned to whistle through my teeth like The Rooster (Roger Miller) and I still remember lyrics to some of the songs. I'll never forget the first time I really noticed the power of music on the overall movie experience. I went to "Chariots of Fire" alone. No one to talk to... just taking it in. After that I sought out movies scored by Vangelis... The Director's cut of "Blade Runner" without the Harrison Ford narration is the far better movie.

Kirk Heuser
Anchor/Senior Reporter
CTV Calgary

My biggest inspiration in life were the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s and 1940s with Larry 'Buster' Crabbe in the title role, and Charles Middleton as Ming the Merciless. Ford Beebe directed all with a flourish. I now have all these cliffhangers on DVDs. About once a year I get nostalgic and replay them night after night. Despite computerized advances, no one has ever bettered the Flash Gordon serials in the science fiction genre.

Paul Jackson
Associate Editor of the Calgary Sun

The touchstone film of my youth: Indiana Jones ... Harrison Ford and these films were largely responsible for my undergraduate study of cultural anthropology. And of course, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles made for memorable moments.

First "Date" Movie:
"All the Right Moves" with my high-school sweetheart

One of My Most Memorable Film Experiences:
The 2004 CIFF with Kev: simply the best

Most Affecting:
Water by Deepa Mehta: indescribably poignant and beautiful

Jennifer Gray
Editor, Avenue

My first and lasting movie memory is of watching The Karate Kid for the first time. Besides falling in love with Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso (which took merely seconds), it was the first time I can remember consciously rooting for the underdog. During the film's tense final minutes, I recall my older cousin nudging me and whispering 'you know he's going to lose right?' Just nine years old at the time, I nearly burst out crying. Choking back elephant-sized tears, I remember my heart pounding as the music swelled and the evil Cobra Kai sensei yelled out "finish him!" to Daniel's opponent and nemesis. Then it happened. Danielson crane-kicked his way to victory and left an imprint on my cinephile heart forever.

Michaelle LeManne
Spin Editor, Orb Magazine

My first movie memory is also one of my most vivid memories from youth. I was maybe eight years old at the time, and my Mom had taken me along for one of her shopping trips downtown. I think it was fall—at least I remember a bit of a chill in the air, and as we were leaving the Bay, I saw that Star Wars was playing at the Grand Theatre just down the block. It had been playing for a while (back then, movies stayed in the theatres for months) and it had piqued my interest, so I asked to see it. To my surprise, my mom said yes. It was to be the first movie I would see in a theatre.

I still remember the smell of the popcorn, the warmth, the high ceilings, the darkness lit by that huge screen. I remember the 20th Century Fox trumpet fanfare at the beginning of the movie (to this day, it still evokes a frisson of sentimentality), the intriguing lines: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” Needless to say, I was enthralled by everything that followed in this galactic space opera—the menacing black hulk of Darth Vader, the brave heroism of Luke Skywalker (he didn't seem whiny to me back then), the spaceships and robots, and the battle of good versus evil. I remember being so captivated that by the time we reached the grand finale where Luke was flying his X-wing fighter down the trench of the Death Star, I was practically in ecstasy. At that moment, I looked over at my Mom to see if she was in a similar state of joy—and discovered that she had fallen asleep!

Well, Luke blew up the Death Star and what followed was a love affair with the movie that lasted years (I must have driven my family crazy singing the Star Wars theme, “naa-naaa-na-na-na-naa-naaa,” while flying imaginary spaceships around the living room), and, I think, a belief, a desire, to be the good guy that lasts even into this more cynical age. And I'm still grateful to my Mom for taking me to see a movie she probably had no interest in and doesn't even remember. But I do.

Andrew Mah
Editor, WHERE Magazine, Calgary Edition

When I was seven my dad bought this massive, brown-and-gold Betamax machine that weighed as much as a pygmy goat and would kill you just as fast. The first two movies we rented were E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and First Blood, a brilliant one-two punch. I cried like you stole my Action Man when E.T. died, then I rewound the tape and watched it again, and again cried. Then I watched First Blood and figured, hey, John Rambo wouldn't cry if E.T. died, so there's no way I will. I watched E.T. a third time, and sure enough, I wept again...

Nick Lewis
The Calgary Herald

The small town where I grew up was having a trade fair that local businesses were taking part in; the video store that my family frequented had a booth at the fair and they had a draw for a framed Academy Award poster. At the end of the fair the owner's of the video store approached my dad and gave him the poster. They told him he was a true “movie buff” and would be the only one that would appreciate the poster.

This memory will stay with me forever, my dad the true “movie buff!”

Jennifer Hills
Marketing Specialist - Starbucks Coffee Canada

Movies are meant to make you laugh, they scare you and make you cry but the movies I like the best are the ones that challenge your values and make you really think...long after the curtain has closed. I watched CRASH last year with a friend, when he left, I watched it again. The poignant message of morale bankruptcy was not lost on me and it forever changed the way I treat people. My actions may not be noticeably different to my friends and family but my heart is different. Like so many other Calgarians I am not racist, but I sure couldn't be bothered to learn about the traditions and culture of my fellow Calgarians ... until now.

Kirsten-Ellen Fleming
CITYNEWS
Reporter

A cinephile can undoubtedly map out his life based on the movies he's watched, and every great experience, every tragedy, every new discovery, is marked with a different movie. This particular revelation may be borne from having watched the movie, or the darkened cinema may have been an escape or a celebration spurned upon by one's own life. Regardless, life's path is outlined by the movies we've chosen to watch. In fact, looking back, I can accurate recall whom I was dating based on what movies were playing at the theatre, because a fair part of the memories are related to films: between Talk to Her, Sex and Lucia, and Swimming Pool, maybe that's why I freaked out some first dates! And thus our choice of movies is a reflection of who we are, either filling a void and allowing us to live vicariously through film, or possibly shaping our own perceptions. And for me, movies allow the freedom to weep over others' loss, allowing me refuge from my own pains but permission to cry. I cry at everything, whether it's life or death moments in Maria Full of Grace, or when the raccoon betrayed the other animals in the animated film, Over the Hedge.

Quynh-Mi Nguyen

My most lasting movie memory was back in 1980, when the North Hill Cinema ran their 70mm film festival. It was the first time I had seen 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and APOCALYPSE NOW on a HUGE screen! It was when 70mm movies were in their glory. It was the first time I had fallen in love with film.

Garry Swanson

Perhaps I laughed too much at John Candy, Steve Martin and the cast of Planes, Trains and Automobiles because the movie came back to haunt me during a recent business trip.

I went to Quebec City for less than 24 hrs, arriving at 10 pm Thursday evening to attend meetings the following day. After the meetings as I prepared for my 6:20 pm return flight, I found out that a storm was on its way. It had already hit Toronto and was expected to be worse by the time it reached Quebec City. (“Good thing we're heading to the airport”)

The ice storm hit at 5 pm. Planes, trains and automobiles (and a bus) began.

Planes: (5:30 pm)
I make it to the airport and check-in. I'm informed that our flight is delayed by 20 min, which isn't a huge surprise given the white out conditions that my chief of staff and I experienced during the cab ride. Following a couple of announcements, receive confirmation that they are still hoping to make it out this evening. However, the additional delay announcements cause reasonable doubt.

(6:30 pm)
Things aren't looking good for our flight - start searching for alternate flights out of Quebec City.
No seats are available on later flights; all morning flights are overbooked. BUT, IF we can get to Toronto/ Montreal, there are seats on the flights back in the morning.

Trains: (7:00)
Find the travel agent office to arrange seats on a train to Montreal/ Toronto. I'm told no seats are available on any west bound train.
"Are you sure? It doesn't matter what time it leaves, just need to get there in the morning."
No go.

(NB: 7:10 pm - passengers are informed that the flight to Toronto/Calgary is cancelled.)

Automobile: (7:15)
Rush over to the car rentals. Mass chaos at all counters - try various agencies. Not one vehicle is available for rent in the entire city.

What's left?
Bus: (12:15 am)
Get on a bus to Montreal for the three hour red-eye ride. Check into a hotel at 3:45 am to catch a couple hours sleep and a shower before we head to Montreal airport.

Planes (1:00 pm)
Arrive back in Calgary with enough time to go home, say hello to the family, change and arrive by 5:45pm to make a presentation at the Flames 25th Anniversary celebration.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles – still makes me laugh, just with more appreciation for experiencing it in the comfort of my home.

Mayor Bronconnier

If it weren't for movies, I'd never have gotten involved in theatre and the arts. During the depression in the states, my parents went to the old opera house in their town on Saturdays to keep warm. For the 10 cents my dad had earned selling apples, they could sit through a vaudeville show, matinee, and repeat of the vaudeville show and see the evening feature. When I was born in 1941, they were still reeling from the depression but still went to that opera house to see films. having no money for baby-sitters, I was carried to the theatre and as I grew up I was watching some really fine performers - first the vaudevillians and then the movie stars - people were small and just got bigger - I thought that was a neat trick - and when my dad asked me when I was 5 what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be an actor. He said he'd rather I become a lawyer. I said, no, I wanted to be an actor, and to his credit he said, 'how do we do it?' He had an eighth-grade education, but he was always willing to stretch. My parents got me voice lessons (vaudevillians and movie stars sing) and dance lessons (vaudevillians and movie stars dance). I went on to the Yale school of drama and graduated as an actor. And the movies, the actors, the vaudevillians started it all and my parents believed that I should be able to do the thing I wanted most to do, be an actor.

Robert Greenwood
Sun.Ergos, A Company of Theatre and Dance

I grew up in a very small, farming town, and I remember the first time my Dad took me to the 'big city' (ie Medicine Hat, Alberta!) to see a movie in a real theatre. I must have been about 6 or 7 and I saw Disney's, Sleeping Beauty. Although I was very enthralled with the whole business of lining up, getting popcorn and waiting in anticipation in the dark for the movie to start, it was the end of the movie that I've always remembered. It was after Aurora awoke from her sleep and was dancing in that big, ballroom with her Prince. She was wearing the most beautiful dress I'd ever seen. Since the fairy godmothers all wanted this ball gown to be their own favourite colour, every time Sleeping Beauty twirled, the dress changed colours…pink, then blue, then green, then pink…. I remember thinking it was the most magical and amazing thing I had ever seen! Still waiting to have a dress like that...

Danielle Couillard, Director of Marketing
JUGO JUICE INTERNATIONAL INC.

I was taken to the movies at a very early age, in the 1920's, and some of the memories that still remain with me after 80 years, are of black and white silent films, in particular, two that scared the life out of me, "The Cat and the Canary" in which this weird apparition dressed in a head covering gown, slowly disappears, leaving the empty gown to fall in a crumpled heap on the floor! Then the final scene in "The Bat", when the mysterious creature is caught in a trap put out in the yard by the old housekeeper, and tied by a rope through her bedroom window, to her bed.

Jack W. Nash.

There are magic moments when we are so affected by a movie or documentary that it changes our lives. So it was for me in 1964 watching “Culloden.” This thought provoking and multi-layered film recounts The Battle of Culloden fought on April 16th, 1746 between Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), with his Jacobite army of 5,000 Highlanders, and The Duke of Cumberland's 9,000 strong army, made up of redcoats and Highland clans loyal to King George II. Shot in black and white, it was the most startling and inventive piece of film-making of its time. While there were no stars or recognizable faces, what made it so compelling was that it seemed there was a documentary crew actually at the battle filming. The film showed everything in intimate detail, from interviews 'straight to camera' with starving Highland clansmen, Redcoats, Bonnie Prince Charlie and The Duke of Cumberland, to the brutal battle scenes where the reality of the bloody slaughter took place. It was all so openly and graphically portrayed – something never before seen on television. I remember watching the credit roll and being so moved that I decided that's what I wanted to do with my life – make films and tell stories that had something meaningful and relevant to say. Watching Culloden was a life altering decision, one for which I am eternally grateful to its filmmaker Peter Watkins.

Joe Novak, President & CEO
joeMedia Group Inc.

When my sister and I were young, naive, innocent farm kids, we begged our mother to drive us to the small town movie theatre to see the horror movie that was playing. After about 30 minutes into the movie we realized this was not any ordinary horror flick. We sat in awe and shock with our jaws dropped to the floor as we experienced "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"! Upon meeting our mom after the movie, we were quite traumatized and scolded her for allowing us to watch that movie! Of course, after years of counseling, I have since recovered from the trauma and have a whole new appreciation for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

Michelle Protsch

I remember being in Cub Scout Camp when I was in grade four and they stretched up a bed sheet half way down a room to show the Jungle Book. A couple of us snuck behind the screen and watched it on the back, thinking it would be backwards. We loved the movie, but nothing was backwards. Well, nothing except the credits at the end, and the fun of sneaking around a dark room for a movie hasn't changed much in the years since.

I remember I was in grade 7 and going to the Londonderry theatre in Edmonton with my friend Christo see some pirate movie - and it was packed. So we went to the very front and lay down on the floor right in front of the screen. The floor was old carpet, the feet from the folks in the first row just behind us, and the screen streched up for miles above us. We used our jackets for pillows, and stuffed our faces with popcorn beneath the battles at sea. I would puke if I had to watch a movie from the floor now - but at the time is was better than any executive suite could ever be.

Dave Kelly
Breakfast Television, Citytv

In 1976 I was 7 years old and my Grandma took my younger brother Chris and I to see King Kong at The Grand Theatre. Going to "the picture show" was something she treated us to on many Saturdays throughout the years we were growing up in Lake Bonavista. Our little legs trapsed the 15+ blocks from her apartment behind Pepe's Pizza on 17th Ave to The Grand Theatre that particular afternoon with much excitement and anticipation.

Movies were always the best with my Grandma who fondly recalled all of the movies she saw as a little girl at the very same theatre as she filled us up with licorice and popcorn from the candy bar.

I remember being overwhelmed by Jessica Lange's beauty and the plight of the monster who loved her. I also remember being terribly embarassed when I cried uncontrollably when King King was killed at the end. My Grandma comforted me and told me that a good movie always made her cry, too.

I am pleased to report that now my 8 year old son gets so emotionally involved that he often cries in movies and my five year old adores popcorn and on our family outings to "the picture show" we are often still accompanied by my Grandma, Betty Sawyer.

Kind regards,

Bonnie Gratz
Artistic Director
Centre Stage Theatre Company

My favourite movie memory is when I first watched Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." Watching the opening scene which has a dolly/zoom pullback that reveals the protagonist "Alex" and his droogs made me want to become a filmmaker. The combination of camera movement, music, set design, and the cold stare of "Alex" sent chills up my spine. I went to film school and after graduating I made a short film that was screened at the 2005 Calgary International Film Festival. I hope that one day I can create something that can have an effect on somebody, like "A Clockwork Orange" had an effect on me.

Marshall Schey

When I was about 12 in the 70's, I saw some previews on TV for the movie "Carrie" and my brother and I BEGGED my mom to let us watch it. This film was to be our first experience watching a scary movie. I was filled with a sense of adventure and the promise of feeling like a grown up at the thought of having permission to watch something so mysterious and completely different than my usual entertainment such as "Gilligan's Island" or "The Partridge Family." My mom protested but acquiesced after our relentless pleas. We convinced her that we were old enough to handle such a movie. After much anticipation, all 3 of us settled in one Saturday night for the big night with our rippled chips, onion dip and Tang on a chilly autumn evening. We watched silently and spellbound all the while I was thinking "I don't know what mom was so worried about, this movie isn't scary." And then it happened, Carrie's hand emerged from the ground to our utter horror and amazement. My brother and I let out a bloodcurdling scream! My mother was so mad at us! (actually more mad at herself..) Against her better judgement, she allowed us to watch this movie that would be sure to haunt our dreams for many nights to come. That was it, she turned the TV off but it was a little too late by then! I felt a private victory although I obeyed my mom and went to bed. Still, I had made it through that movie and survived. I realized there was a whole new world out there, what a concept! I could get completely lost in movie. No, the "Smurfs" just weren't going to cut it anymore...

Leah Kungl