When I was in high school in Salt Lake City, Utah I used to take tickets at the U.S. Film Festival that grew into the Sundance Film Festival. I love Film Festivals, I love seeing movies in a crowd of strangers - then after the film become friends because of the film journey they've been on together. I'm a completely different person because of film festivals! I saw John Sayles speak when he was at the U.S. Film Festival when I was in high school and it changed the way I looked at the world and started me on the festival life.

My friend Robert Koehler, who writes for Variety says, "When I go to film festivals, I tend to look left when everyone else is looking right."

I think that is excellent advice! There are films at AFI FEST that are Critics' Choices but you may not have heard of them yet. That being said, you won't be sorry you took a chance; these are some of the most exciting films in the festival and don't currently have a U.S. distributor, so this may be your only chance to see them. That's what is so thrilling about film festivals!