Canadian actor Don McKellar poses for a photograph. McKellar and his wife, Tracy Wright, who passed away in June, both appear in the film Trigger. (Matt Sayles/Associated Press)

NOTE: This entry was submitted Sept.19.

By Roger Rousseau, citizen contributor

It's Saturday afternoon, the penultimate day of TIFF, and I've just returned from a screening of Bruce McDonald's Trigger. Even though I have three films left to see, the festival is essentially done for me. It's not because anything in my life has derailed me from seeing any more films (I will be going to the screenings I have left).

It's because Don McKellar made me cry.

First of all, if you're unfamiliar with Trigger's concept, it's about a former rock duo, played by Molly Parker and Tracy Wright, who reunite one night 10 years after the band's breakup. They go from a dinner to a benefit concert to an after-party, and a few other stops in between, drudging up past conflicts and current issues along the way. Leading up to TIFF, Trigger received a lot of attention because it features Wright's final cinematic performance. An accomplished and respected stage and screen actor, Wright died of pancreatic cancer in June at age 50.

This much I knew going in. But even with that kind of tragedy surrounding the film, I didn't want my opinion to be swayed by it. If anything, I was judging the film based on McDonald's previous work. Because I consider Hard Core Logo to be the greatest rock and roll movie of all time, the bar was set pretty high for Trigger. And although Trigger is a good film, it disappoints in comparison to HCL. At least, that's what I thought as the end credits rolled.

After the film, McDonald was joined onstage by Daniel MacIvor, McKellar, Jennifer Jonas and Leonard Farlinger for a Q&A. McDonald and MacIvor dominated the session, with Jonas and Farlinger jumping in whenever needed. McKellar, however, was silent. He had a small part in the film, so I assumed that small contribution didn't allow him much insight into the making of it. And then, and I can't remember whether it was McDonald or MacIvor who said it, but one of them made a comment about being at "Don and Tracy's wedding." And my heart sank: Don McKellar and Tracy Wright had been married. Honestly, I didn't know.

As the session was wrapping up, McKellar still hadn't spoken, and I thought that we would go without hearing from him. And then he reached for the microphone. By the time he started speaking, he was already choked with emotion. Unable to find the words, he then decided he wouldn't speak, but before he could hand the mic off to someone else, applause from the audience encouraged him to continue.

With great difficulty, he spoke. First, he thanked everyone onstage for pushing forward with the film, and then he thanked the audience for embracing the film and Tracy's final performance. Then, he told us about an appointment that he and Tracy had with her oncologist to set up a schedule for her chemotherapy sessions. One of the dates he proposed, she flat out refused. Why? Because she had to be on set that day. And at that moment, the screening, and McKellar's presence up there onstage, took on a whole different meaning.

Suddenly, it wasn't just a film screening, but a memorial for a talented actor and exceptional human being whose life was cut short. It didn't just happen to be Tracy Wright's last film, it was made with the knowledge that it would be her last. Everyone scrambled and put their time and money into the project (it was made over a period of four weekends, and entirely funded out of the producers' own pockets) to ensure that the film could be completed while Tracy was still able to do it. And so, considering the motives behind making the film, as well as the time and budgetary constraints faced by those making it, what was just an average film became an extraordinary achievement, a testament to the dedication that these filmmakers, and this actress, brought to their craft. McKellar's words had that strange effect of being both sad and uplifting; and as my emotions swelled, I knew that I had reached the apex of the festival.

It was that convergence of real life and cinema that we all wish would happen more often. We don't just spend 11 days at TIFF rushing from screening to screening because we want to be entertained by films, but because we want to find some element within them that will tell us something about ourselves, and the world around us. And the extra advantage of seeing films at a festival like this is that even if we don't find that element within the film, by interacting with other filmmakers and festival-goers, we have the opportunity to have a continued dialogue with these films, even after the projector has stopped running. It's not something that we can experience year-round.

Feeling inspired and emotionally spent, I wasn't quite sure how to face the three films I had left. That's the danger with TIFF: You see so many movies in such a small amount of time that it's very easy to go into overload. So, as I write this, it feels as though TIFF is over. But it has been a remarkable festival, if only for the scene that I witnessed today. Had I seen this film in regular release, I would not have had this experience. And this is why I keep coming back to TIFF, year after year after year.

You can follow Roger throughout #TIFF10 at @roger_writes