Colin Geddes is a Toronto-based freelance film archivist, curator, journalist and consultant for film, television, home video and DVD. Currently programmer of the popular Midnight Madness selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, Colin also is on the advisory committee of the Reel Asian Film Festival, and the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. A respected authority on international trends in genre cinema, particularly those in Asia, he has served on the juries of several international film festivals. He organized the long running Kung Fu Fridays film series, where he was able to showcase martial arts and cult films from Asia. In 2003 he started Ultra 8 Pictures, an independent theatrical distribution and booking company, dedicated to bringing offbeat international cinema to Canadian audience. Past films he has brought to theatres include David Lynch’s Inland Empire, Takashi Miike’s Audition, Bubba Ho-Tep, and End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones.

You’ve got $10 to buy lunch - where do you go?

Pho Xelua (254 Spadina Avenue) for a big steaming bowl of pho with all the fixings!

The budget’s unlimited, someone else is paying and the choice is yours - where do you pick for dinner?

Chinese ultra gourmet at Lai Wah Heen Restaurant (108 Chestnut Street). The have possibly the best dim sum in the city.

Tell us some of the food shops you frequent when buying groceries to cook for yourself.

I grab all my tasty cuts of meat and my turkeys from Vince Gasparro’s Butcher Shop (857 Bloor Street West). I lock my bike outside of Tutti Frutti (64 Kensington Avenue) when shopping for my spices and granola.

When ordering in for a quiet night at home, what’s your favourite place for take-out or delivery?

Portuguese chicken from Sardinha Rei Dos Frangos - “The King of BBQ Chicken” (942 Bloor Street West).

Oh, no, relatives are coming to Toronto from out of town - where do you take them?

Dim sum at Rol San Restaurant (323 Spadina Avenue).

Your favourite place to grab a couple of drinks and hang out where everybody knows your name?

I actually refer to Aunties & Uncles (74 Lippincott Street) as my version of a “local”. I usually have a couple of Americanos there before I start my day.

What’s coming up?

Gearing up for my gig as programmer of the Midnight Madness selection of the Toronto International Film Festival which lustily explores cinema’s forbidden and dangerous frontiers. Wildly popular, it delivers the very best of contemporary, worldwide horror, animé, action and general freakdom. I have spent most of the summer hiding from the sun and screening films from around the world to come up with a final pick of ten wild and wacky genre films from around the world. The craziness starts on Sept 6th with the world premiere the new film by Italian horror director Dario Argento (dad of actress Asia Argento), The Mother of Tears and then we go on to present a slew of other premieres including George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead and Takeshi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django.