THE Toronto International Film Festival is promising a lighter touch this year, both thematically and in the number of movies presented, with domestic dramas and comedies prominent among the 312 features and shorts unveiled on Tuesday. The latest Toronto fest is somewhat smaller than it was last year's event, when 352 films were shown, many of them related to war and politics. Organizers also promise a healthy dose of Hollywood star power at the 33rd edition of the festival, with Brad Pitt, Ben Kingsley, Keira Knightly, Jennifer Aniston, and even basketball star LeBron James among the more than 500 celebrities and special guests expected to attend. George Clooney was originally expected to attend, but the festival said he would not be coming. The 10-day festival, which begins on September 4, is seen by many as the kick-off to Oscar season, and ranks with Cannes, Sundance, Venice and Berlin in influence. Despite showing fewer films in total, the festival will feature 116 world premieres among the 249 full-length features, up from 101 world premieres last year. All told, films from 64 countries will be screened, with more than 340,000 admissions expected. Cameron Bailey, who took over as TIFF co-director this year from Noah Cowan, said organizers had deliberately trimmed the number of offerings to make the festival more manageable, and he also acknowledged a shift to more inward-looking films this year. “(It's) movies that are about more the domestic sphere, more about relationships between characters, family relationships, and less about the whole political sweep of what's going on in the world,” he told Reuters. GALA HIGHLIGHTS Among the 20 gala pictures that will highlight the festival are Richard Eyre's “The Other Man”, which stars Liam Neeson as a man who discovers his wife has been receiving e-mails and mobile messages from an unknown rival, played by Antonio Banderas. As well, Joel and Ethan Coen, who won the best picture Oscar this year for the TIFF-screened “No Country for Old Men”, will present “Burn After Reading”, starring Hollywood heavyweights Pitt, Clooney and John Malkovich, in a comedy about a former CIA agent whose memoirs fall into the hands of two unscrupulous gym employees. The festival will open with Canadian Paul Gross's “Passchendaele”, which tells the tale of two brothers fighting in the disastrous World War One battle in France. Among documentary entries will be “Religulous”, a tongue-in-cheek look at organized religion by humorist Bill Maher and “Seinfeld” producer Larry Charles, and “At the Edge of the World”, which follows a Canadian environmental activist and his boat in pursuit of Japanese whalers. While the festival acts for some as a preview of late-season movie releases, the main business for many will be securing distribution rights for their movies. Another standout is Rod Lurie's “Nothing but the Truth,” which casts Kate Beckinsale as a Washington reporter jailed for refusing to reveal her CIA source for an explosive news story about a government scandal. It also stars Matt Dillon, Alan Alda and David Schwimmer. France produced or co-produced a whopping 49 films to be shown at the festival this year, led by Jean-Francois Richet's thriller “Public Enemy Number One.” The film casts Vincent Cassel as Mesrine, the legendary French gangster of the 1960s and 1970s infamous for his sadism, bravado and daring prison escapes. Briton Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) is back with his comedy “Slumdog Millionaire” about a kid who wants to be a contestant on a Hindi version of the hit US television game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” And 12 international filmmakers, including Scarlett Johansson and Nathalie Portman, are to showcase a litany of short films describing love in the Big Apple in “New York, I Love You,” featuring performances from Orlando Bloom, Christina Ricci, Hayden Christensen, Andy Garcia, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon, and James Caan. The Toronto International Film Festival is the biggest in North America, having become a key event for Oscar-conscious studios and distributors and is attended by a sizable contingent of North American media. Unlike Cannes and Berlin film festivals, Toronto does not award jury prizes. But moviegoers who bought more than 300,000 tickets for the event in 2007 awarded an audience prize for best motion picture to Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg for his violent thriller “Eastern Promises,” about the Russian mafia in London.
