Music: {allcanada} De Niro, Kidman films at TIFF

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

{allcanada} De Niro, Kidman films at TIFF

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The 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival will once again bring a glittering array of movie stars to Canada's largest city in September.

Movies featuring Robert De Niro, Javier Bardem, Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, Natalie Portman, Ryan Reynolds, Hilary Swank, Ben Affleck, Marion Cotillard, Colin Firth, James McAvoy, Sam Rockwell, Amy Ryan and dozens of other luminaries will guarantee a non-stop parade of celebrities in downtown Toronto from Sept. 9-19, it was announced Tuesday at a news conference.

Robert Redford, Woody Allen, Stephen Frears, Julian Schnabel and Michael Winterbottom are among prominent directors with new works showing at TIFF. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his directorial debut with the international premiere of his film, Jack Goes Boating.

In addition to the heady mix of famous people, world premieres and gala red-carpet events, this year's festival will involve special free screenings for the public. Specifically, 35 years of movies that found success through their TIFF association. That would include films such as last year's eventual Oscar winner, The Secret In Their Eyes, plus The Bill Chill, Crash, Water and the many other movies that were international success stories after being launched here.

This year's lineup of 300 movies includes many films that will be screened here before anywhere else on the planet.

Those include such American movies as:

The psychological thriller Black Swan, a film about ballet rivals that stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis;

The Conspirator, Redford's film about the man accused of assassinating Abraham Lincoln (Robin Wright and James McAvoy star);

Janie Jones, which concerns a rock star getting saddled with the child (Abigail Breslin) he didn't know he had;

The Town, a cops-and-robbers/romance-drama starring Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall and Blake Lively;

Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell in Conviction, a story of a sister's devotion to her imprisoned brother; and Henry's Crime, a film about banks, actors and love with Keanu Reeves and Vera Farmiga.

Other important premieres involve movies from all corners of the globe, and include Guillaume Canet's Little White Lies, a film about friends reluctantly telling each other the truth (and starring Marion Cotillard and Francois Cluzet); Francois Ozon's Potiche, which stars Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu in a comedy about the war between men and women; The King's Speech, a British film with Colin Firth about George VI; Mike Leigh's Another Year, with Jim Broadbent and Lesley Manvile; Biutiful, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's haunting film about a man (Javier Bardem) at a turning point in his life; Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat, a film of and about Mumbai; Lope, a biopic of Spanish playwright Lope de Vega with Sonia Braga and Alberto Ammann, from Andrucha Waddington; and Andrew Lau's The Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.

The list of other leading directors bringing their work to Toronto includes John Cameron Mitchell, John Curran, Kim Jee-woon, Sylvain Chomet, Tony Goldwyn, Rowan Joffe, George Hickenlooper and Darren Aronofsky. Actor

The Toronto International Film Festival is the leading public film festival in the world, and is generally seen as the Oscars-season launchpad, which results of recent years bear out. This year the festival's newly constructed permanent home, the TIFF Bell Lightbox building at King and John Streets, officially open on Sept. 12.

Ticket packages are now available for this year's fest at tiff.net/thefestival, or by phoning (416)-968-FILM. The box office is at 2 Carlton St.