Today is the last day of the Toronto Film Festival. It's my third year as a volunteer and enthusiastic film-goer, and this year has been terrific. I had a great volunteer job – every morning I helped cut and paste newspaper clippings about the festival, and then arranged and pasted them on paper. Then it all got photocopied – 65 copies – and we distributed it to a couple of offices. Working with two people shut away on the 14th floor of 2 Carleton was great. Away from the bustle, left on our own to do a good job, it was very sane.

MAVERICK SESSION ON BOLLYWOOD: This was way better than I thought it was going to be. Responding to Suketu Mehta's intelligent, thoughtful questions, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachhan and director Karan Johar made me remember the nobility of the acting profession, and how it really is an art.

KHADAK: A visually stunning film about a young man in Mongolia with the power to 'feel' the distress of others (including animals). I found it a little challenging, as it was done in a kind of magical realism style. I was most interested in the context, which was the forced relocation of this nomadic community in order to enable mining. It was heart wrenching to see them move from their yerts into a barren apartment-building community. It is completely against all human rights standards for mining companies to go into this type of area and completely destroy the way of life of an entire community. It tied in really well with the Toronto Roundtable on Mining and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) that happened on 12 September.

VANAJA: A simple girl in a simple Indian village goes to work for the rich landlady. From there the story unfolds—she learns to dance, she is awakening sexually, she is raped, she tries to confront issues standing on her own two feet, she has the extra responsibility of taking care of her ailing father. I loved the film for its recognition of the many layers we all live in, and for the straight-forwardness and delicate telling of the tale.

SO GOES THE NATION: A documentary about the 2004 presidential elections in Ohio. I was there, in Cleveland, so it was like reliving the torture of that evening when the ballots were being counted. But the film is not so much about that as the tactics used by the Republicans and the lack of a unified and appropriate response by the Democrats. Although the excitement that 'we' (the 'liberal' leftish) felt about the seemingly good possibility that we were going to get rid of Bush, we didn't have enough coordination and farsightedness. The Republicans' lack of integrity and use of dirty campaign strategies worked, and we lost. It was devastating, and we got to relive it in the film.

10 ITEMS OR LESS: Morgan Freeman – wow! He produced and starred in this film, and it was completely and totally beautiful. From beginning to end, this is about human-ness, about how we really can connect with each other, even if it's just for a short time. We just have to keep at it, keep talking to people, keep being vulnerable. Paz Vega, who plays the young woman at the '10 Items or Less' check-out, is fantastic.

KABUL EXPRESS: I love the heart of this movie. Like 10 Items or Less, it's about being with each other, and how if we keep trying, keep taking risks, we learn about each other and that we are all human beings. Here the people who learn are bitter enemies, and through their adventures on the road, and their astute observations, they learn to see beyond their prejudices. So that's the important part of the film. The fun part was standing in the rush line and watching everyone gather to see stars John Abraham and Arshad Warsi arrive. When they did there was a huge rush with much flashing of cameras and cell phones, and then many left without waiting to see the film!

Today I might see OUTSOURCED, but I'll see if I have the stamina to go stand in the rush line on the last evening.

It's been an interesting 10 days, and I look forward to doing it again next year.