By Jeffrey Hodgson
TORONTO, Sept 8 - The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 30th edition on Thursday with movies about violence, sex, religious persecution and the stress of a post-9/11 world -- all set to share a stage with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
The 10-day event, which film critic Roger Ebert calls the start of Hollywood’s "Oscar season", will screen more than 250 features on subjects as diverse as female miners, gay cowboys, a transvestite Irish revolutionary, would-be suicide bombers, a mistreated child bride and Japan’s emperor Hirohito.
Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Steve Martin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Cameron Diaz, Viggo Mortensen and Jackie Chan are just a few of the stars expected at the festival, which ranks with Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Sundance as one of the world’s most influential.
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The festival began on Thursday evening with the world premiere of "Water" -- a movie that sparked riots in India when the first attempt was made to film it five years ago.
The emotionally charged film about an eight-year-old Hindu child widow was eventually made last year in Sri Lanka, where director Deepa Mehta said she could work without distractions.
"It was fabulous... I didn’t have to go to a single political meeting. I just directed the film," she said.
Closing the festival on September 17 will be crime drama "Edison", which pairs Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman with pop star Justin Timberlake and rapper LL Cool J.
The movies shown in between will come from more than 50 countries, with more than 100 being shown for the first time.
Last year’s festival offerings -- including "Ray", "Hotel Rwanda", "Being Julia", "Sideways" and "The Sea Inside" -- became major contenders in the Oscar race and critics will be on the lookout for next year’s award winners.
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s starring role in the biography "Capote" and director Ang Lee’s revisionist Western "Brokeback Mountain" are already being spoken of as likely nominees.
But festival organisers said lower-profile films, many dealing with anxiety that followed the terror attacks in New York, Washington and Madrid, would offer equally worthy viewing.
TERROR ATTACKS, WAR
"Sorry, Haters" tells the story of an Arab immigrant cab driver whose brother has been caught up in America’s security net after the attacks.
"Paradise Now" follows two young Palestinians in the days before they are called up to become suicide bombers, a theme also taken up in a U.S. setting in "The War Within".
The festival’s director of communications, Gabrielle Free, said the selection of several films with similar themes was not deliberate, given that they were picked by different variety of programmers.
"September 11 is now four years behind us, and I think that’s about the amount of time you would expect for some thought-provoking films (to emerge)," she said.
Equally provoking will be the latest films from Canada’s two most famous directors, both of which debuted in competition at Cannes.
David Cronenberg’s "A History of Violence" tells the story of the manager of a small town diner whose life is thrown into chaos after thwarting an attempted robbery.
And Atom Egoyan’s "Where the Truth Lies" revolves around a scandal that drives apart a pair of entertainers played by Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. The movie has already been slapped with a NC-17 rating for its explicit sexuality.
(Additional reporting by Arthur Spiegelman in Toronto)
