James Franco stars 127 Hours, Danny Boyle's anticipated follow-up to the indie blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire. (TIFF)

By Jessica Wong, CBC News

With queues, nothing gets one's blood boiling more than line-jumpers. So when a projection snafu leapfrogged hundreds of exasperated public TIFF-goers in front of hundreds of equally exasperated media and industry TIFF-goers, you can imagine the fireworks.

An issue with the Roy Thomson Hall projector left Saturday's 1:30 p.m. gala audience unable to see the subtitles for Guillaume Canet's drama Little White Lies. The TIFF powers-that-be decided to halt the proceedings and move the audience to one of the large cinemas nearby at the Scotiabank Theatre.

Problem: the one they chose already had a massive and unruly queue outside it. Snaking around the concessions area were hundreds of P&I folk awaiting the 2:45 p.m. screening of Oscar-winner Danny Boyle's buzz-worthy 127 Hours. They were already frustrated because the start time had been delayed 30 minutes.

Stir in a surfeit of queue-jumpers "joining" friends in line (FYI Brian D. Johnson, people recognized you), a serious lack of volunteers to maintain order and a general failure to communicate with the masses and the result was predictable: vicious shouting matches, defeated-looking theatre staff and many loud and dramatic pronouncements that this was TIFF's biggest debacle ever.

"If they had just told us -- I had a back-up movie -- I could have made it," raged one P&I attendee. "My day is f---ed now!"

Danny Boyle, seen at TIFF in 2008, arrived to apologize for the delayed screening.(Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

Eventually, 127 Hours was moved to one of the Scotiabank's smaller cinemas, with two back-to-back screenings scheduled. (This lucky reporter -- who teamed up with an intrepid fellow Torontonian, two plucky New Yorkers and a zen Dutchman -- managed to land in the first group thanks to a frazzled, but level-headed theatre manager).

The approximately 320 cinephiles in the initial batch were also treated to Boyle himself bounding up to the screen to apologize for the delay (plus no pre-film sponsor announcements).

"It was not to create a siege mentality among you," Boyle joked as he explained what had happened.

That the snafu ultimately left many media and industry folks waiting about 127 minutes to watch his film (which finally started just after 4 p.m.) was not unnoticed by the peppy Brit.

"I look forward to all your 127 Hours jokes," he quipped, "and assure you that the movie is just 90 minutes long."

"Well," mused one audience member, "we'll always have this experience. It's like 'We'll always have Paris.'"

And the movie? I thoroughly enjoyed it, but especially after the exciting exploits before the show.

You can follow Jessica throughout #TIFF10 on Twitter at @cbcarts