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Toronto film festival lightens up with new comedies
2008-09-04
TORONTO (AFP) - The 33rd Toronto International Film Festival opens Thursday, with a string of comedies marking a departure from the more earnest films of recent years about the war in Iraq, terrorism and US politics. "Curiously, we've moved away from Iraq and what we've seen in American cinema (of late) is a rediscovery of comedies," festival director Piers Handling said in an interview with AFP. Over the past three years, the festival has showcased a host of documentaries, feature films and shorts by filmmakers disenchanted with American foreign policies. "We could say we are (still) living in quite difficult times with wars and economic problems, but I think filmmakers understand that audiences just need a break sometimes from that," said festival chief Cameron Bailey. And as Bush nears the end of his second term in the White House, "there's no reason to go backward," Handling said, noting that US presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain were also not on this year's billboards. Instead, the festival features nearly 30 comedies, including "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Anne Fontaine's "La fille de Monaco," and the Coen brothers' dark comedy "Burn After Reading." There is also a dozen environmental films on "the planet and how we take care of it," Bailey said, such as the condemnation of Japanese whalers in "At the Edge of the World," and "Upstream Battle" about Native Americans' struggle for their traditional fishing rights. Throughout the week, the festival will showcase a whopping 312 films from 64 countries, including 116 world premieres. Spike Lee's film "Miracle at St. Anna" about a band of black soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in Italy during World War II, Finnish filmmaker Mika Kaurismaki's "Three Wise Men," Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," award-winning Israeli filmmaker Amos Kollek's "Restless" and "Rachel getting Married" by Jonathan Demme are among the most hotly-anticipated films this year. France produced or co-produced 49 films to be shown at the festival, 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. Actors Ben Kingsley, George Clooney, Peter O'Toole and more star power than ever before are expected to be on hand, with one exception -- Tea Leoni has cancelled appearances to promote her film "Ghost Town" since her husband David Duchovny checked himself into a clinic for sex addicts last week. Many of the big Hollywood studios also opted this year not to showcase their wares here. The Toronto International Film Festival is the biggest in North America, and has traditionally been a key event for Oscar-conscious studios and distributors as it is attended by a sizable contingent of North American media. But since labor strife hit Hollywood at the start of the year, several studios are said to be "experimenting" with releases, while others lamented that their films were just not finished in time for the Toronto festival. Thursday evening, Canadian filmmaker Paul Gross will open the festival, which runs to September 13, with his World War I epic "Passchendaele," based on his own grandfather's experiences in the 1917 battle. 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. Jason Reitman's "Juno" starring Ellen Page and Micheal Cera also won praise, and went on to win an Oscar for screenwriter Diablo Cody.
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