One of the great joys I get from living in a city like Toronto is the ability to take in culture from around the world. A great passion of mine is cinema, and growing up as I did in a small town, when I moved here, I was desperate to see alternative films. A regular staple of my movie-going experiences is the beautiful TIFF Bell Lightbox theatre.

There are many reasons to love this building and to congregate here. Opened in 2010, it is a beautiful architectural triumph- a modernist palace to movies. The Lightbox, as its full name alludes to, is also the centre of TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival, and every September plays host to the world’s best and brightest directors, actors and producers.

But beyond being a beautiful building and hosting beautiful people in September, the Lightbox is also a functioning, multi-screen movie theatre year-round. They have a programme of independent, foreign and Canadian cinema, and are the first stop in the city to see something hard-to-find and avant garde. They often show retrospectives of brilliant directors and host exhibitions of cinema-related art and costumes. Soon, they will be launching a retrospective of the work of Pedro Almodovar.

Residing as it is, right in the heart of downtown Toronto, the Lightbox is a convenient, beautiful and welcoming gem of a spot to see the best of the world’s weird and wonderful films.