Veteran actor Donald Sutherland will be the president of the jury at the eighth annual Whistler Film Festival, December 4 to 7. Joining Sutherland on the jury are Canadian directors Patricia Rozema and Sturla Gunnarsson.

Held in the British Columbia ski resort, the festival will be presenting a number of world premieres including veteran counter-culture filmmaker Ron Mann's Know Your Mushrooms. Mann's latest film explores the world of fungi and their integral relationship with the health of the planet.

Other world premieres are David McIlvride's Sledhead, a documentary about disabled hockey players; Anand Ramayya's Mad Cow, Sacred Cow, a documentary of the filmmaker's journey from his in-law's Saskatchewan cattle farm to his native India; and Ileana Pietrobruno's Girlfriend Experience, a docudrama that explores the hidden world of the john.

Girlfriend Experience is one of six titles competing for the C$15,000 Borsos Award for Best New Canadian Feature. The others are Jim Donovan's 3 Seasons, Marie-Helène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu's Before Tomorrow, which won the Best First Canadian Film Prize at Toronto; Alison Reid's The Baby Formula, Charles Officer's Nurse.Fighter.Boy; and Darren Curtis and Pat Kiely's Who Is KK Downey'

The festival opens with Michael McGowan's One Week and closes with Bruce McDonald's horror film Pontypool. Both films premiered at Toronto.

Sutherland will be the recipient of a special Tribute at the festival, to be presented on Saturday, December 6.

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