A Who's Who of the Toronto International Film Festival.

North America's largest movie event turns 28 with stellar line-up

This year's Toronto International Film Festival is a who's who of international cinema with the year's most anticipated movies making their World and North American premieres. Divided into the main programmes, listed below is the list of movies to watch for (Italian filmmakers are featured in another article in this week's issue of Tandem. Canadian filmmakers were featured in a previous edition.)

Galas
Robert Altman's The Company stars Canadian Neve Campbell as a gifted dancer on the verge of becoming a principal with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The film also stars James Franco and Malcolm McDowell.
Jane Campion's In the Cut is based on Susanna Moore's bestselling novel of the same name, and stars Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Damici, and Kevin Bacon. A psychological thriller combining elements of modern love and modern crime, the film explores the darker side of passion when a lonely New York woman becomes involved with a tough homicide detective who is investigating a series of murders in her neighbourhood.
Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men stars Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, Alison Lohman, and Bruce McGill in a story of how the life of a small-time con man is upset by the unexpected arrival of his teenage daughter.
Michael Winterbottom's Code 46 stars Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton, in a compelling love story that travels into an eerily possible near-future where cities are heavily controlled and only accessible through checkpoints.
Richard Linklater's The School of Rock, starring Jack Black as a hell-raising guitarist who turns a class of fifth grade high-achievers into high-voltage rock 'n' rollers.
John Irvin's The Boys from County Clare, about two estranged brothers as they duke it out in a traditional Irish music competition. Anne Fontaine's Nathalie... about a wife's response to her husband's infidelity starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu.
Jean Paul Rappeneau's Bon Voyage stars Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, and Peter Coyote about a young man who must choose between a famous actress and an impassioned student.
Joel Schumacher's Veronica Guerin, stars Cate Blanchett as the Irish journalist shot down in her prime by local gangsters in order to shut her up.
Carl Franklin's Out of Time, about a police officer (Denzel Washington) who's in a race against time to solve two murders before he himself falls under suspicion.

Masters
John Sayles' Casa de los babys, stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daryl Hannah, Rita Moreno and Marcia Gay Harden as American women travelling to an unnamed South American country to adopt children.
Gus Van Sant's Elephant, based partially on the shootings at Columbine High School, and winner of the Palme D'or in Cannes this year. The film takes place during one day at a typical American high school following 10 kids in their daily activities as an atmosphere of violence and lawlessness leads to a tragic event.
Michael Haneke's Le temps du Loup is a harrowing account of post-apocalyptic life after some unspecified mass disaster starring Isabelle Huppert and Patrice Chereau.
Mike Hodges' I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, stars Clive Owen and Charlotte Rampling and based on an original screenplay by Trevor Preston. The film tells the story of a former gang boss who is drawn back into the game to avenge his brother's sordid and tragic death.

Visions
Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases, parts 1 and 2, set to cover 60 years of the 20th century, from the discovery of uranium in 1928, to the end of the cold war in 1989. This period is explored through the character of Tulse Luper, a traveller and self-styled artist, but also a man who has a knack for getting himself locked up.
Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms, about an independent photographer, and an unemployed woman who leave L.A. for the desert searching a natural set for a magazine photoshoot. Then something horrible and hideous brutally puts an end to their trip.
Vincent Gallo's controversial The Brown Bunny, where the director stars as a motorcyclist who races across America picking up girls along the way.
Thomas de Thier's feature debut Des Plumes dans La tete, about a woman (Sophie Museur) coping with the death of her five-year-old son who accidentally drowns.

Special Presentations
Lars von Trier's much-anticipated Dogville, which divided the critics at Cannes, stars Nicole Kidman and Paul Bettamy and is set in the 1930s and follows the inhabitants of an American village during the Depression as a stranger on the run from gangsters disrupts their lives.
François Dupeyron's Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du coran, about a neglected adolescent boy, who befriends a shopkeeper (Omar Sharif).
Billy Ray's Shattered Glass, which details the meteoric rise and fall of Stephen Glass, a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine, The New Republic, who fell from grace when discovered he invented most of his sources.
Keith Gordon's The Singing Detective, starring Robert Downey, Jr. as a failed crime writer treated by an eccentric doctor (Mel Gibson) who forces him to confront painful memories.
Wayne Kramer's The Cooler, about a loser (William H. Macy) whose fortune begins to change after falling in love with a cocktail waitress.
Charles Martin Smith's The Snow Walker, based on the renowned Canadian short story "Walk Well My Brother" by Farley Mowat about a bush pilot (Barry Pepper) and an Inuit woman who survive a plane crash in the wilderness.
Jacques Rivette's L'histoire de Marie et Julien, centres on a man (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) who blackmails a Madame X, while an ex-lover enters his life again. Also stars Emmanuele Beart and Anne Brochet.

Contemporary World Cinema
Sedigh Barmak's Osama - the first Afghani film in a decade - about a 12-year-old girl who must marry an elderly Mullah to avoid execution.
Barbara Albert's Free Radicals, a film exploring the fate of a 24-year-old plane crash survivor.
Bent Hamer's Norwegian comedy Kitchen Stories, about a group of scientists who descend on a small village to observe the kitchen habits of bachelors.
Roger Michell's The Mother, about a recent widow who falls in love with her daughter's husband.
David Mackenzie's thriller Young Adam, which is the cause of controversy in Scotland these days because of its graphic violence. The film follows a dangerous drifter (Ewan McGregor) who goes to work for an unsuspecting couple (Peter Mullan, Tilda Swinton) in 1950s Glasgow.
Death is also at the heart of Naomi Kawase's Shara, about a family who must come to grips with the fact that one of their twin boys has disappeared.
Penny Woolcock's The Principles of Lust follows a displaced writer as he tries to find inspiration in drugs.
Solveig Anspach's Stormy Weather, about a psychiatric patient who goes to Iceland to uncover her past.
Dagur Kari's Noi Albinoi, about a young man eager to escape his small village.
James Cox's Wonderland stars Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes cohorting with low-life gangsters to feed his drug habit.
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe, where a common twist of fate bind a suicide-obsessed Japanese librarian and a Thai working girl.
Steven Voigt's Identity Kills, about a weak, vulnerable woman who stumbles on the opportunity to take another identity in order to free herself from a controlling boyfriend.

Discovery
Yann Samuell's Jeux d'enfants follows Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard) in a delirious pursuit of an aesthetic that mirrors the giddiness of love and the equilibrium of longing.
Manish Jha's A Nation Without Women deals with India's shameful female infanticide problem.
Adam Goldberg's second feature, I Love Your Work stars Giovanni Ribisi, Franka Potente, Joshua Jackson, Christina Ricci, Jason Lee, Vince Vaughn, and Elvis Costello, and follows a fictional (Ribisi) through the disintegration of his marriage and his gradual mental breakdown.
Greg Marcks's 11:14 stars Barbara Hershey, Patrick Swayze, Hilary Swank and Henry Thomas in a tale about events that occur at 11:14 p.m.
Sarah Gavron's This Little Life focuses on a young couple who watch their newborn cling to life in the neonatal intensive care department of a British hospital.
Scott Caan's directorial debut Dallas 362, is about two friends (Caan, Shawn Hatosy) who live their lives in the fast lane.

Director's Spotlight
This year the focus is on three of the most renowned Turkish directors: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Zeki Demirkubuz, and Omer Kavur. Ceylan's Grand Jury Prize winner at Cannes, Distant (2003), Demirkubuz's Confession (2001); and Kavur's latest feature Encounter (2003).

Dialogues: Talking With Pictures
This year's ninth installment features six films presented by some of today's most influential personalities in the arts community. Jane Campion presents Nicolas Roeg's Bad Timing; Hector Babenco presents Eduardo Coutinho's Twenty Years Later; Margarethe von Trotta presents Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru; Gary Burns presents Robert Altman's Nashville; Francis Ford Coppola presents One from the Heart; and director Sir Ridley Scott presents the Director's Cut of Alien, with never before seen footage.

Rogers Industry Centre
The programming line-up brings together innovators and leaders to exchange perspectives in a rapidly changing, global industry. Some of the many guest speakers confirmed to date include: Julie Taymor, leading a Master Class; Elliot Goldenthal and Neil Young participating In-Conversation; and Ron Mann, John Sayles, Barbara Gowdy headline the Maverick Filmmakers Programme.


The Toronto International Film Festival takes place September 4 to 13. For more information call 416.968.FILM.

Publication Date: 2003-08-31
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