Ken Scott’s Starbuck added to Galas.

The Toronto International Film Festival has unveiled more homegrown talents showing at this year’s festival, including new films from the likes of international favourite Guy Maddin.

The Canadian features added to the programme include a Gala screening of Ken Scott’s Starbuck, about an immature man who discovers he is the biological father of hundreds of children. [This is in addition to other previously announced Canadian Gala selections, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz).

In other sections, Canadian features to have their world premieres will include Robert Lieberman’s Bollywood-influenced hockey drama Breakaway, Nathan Morlando’s Edwin Boyd starring Scott Speedman, Michael Dowse’s comedy Goon starring Seann William Scott, Guy Maddin’s Keyhole [pictured], Randall Cole’s surveillance story 388 Arletta Avenue, and Carl Bessai’s Sisters & Brothers.

The Canada First! Section, which celebrates new and provocative Canadian filmmakers, will open with the North American premiere of Wetlands(Marecages) by Guy Edoin, a family drama set on a dairy farm. That section has world premieres of one-night-stand story Nuit #1, teenage gambling murder mystery The Odds and The Patron Saints, set in a nursing home.

 “This year saw many Canadian filmmakers address a wide range of pressing social issues including the dangers of progress; the possibility of privacy and identity in a hi-tech, increasingly alienated world; teenage gambling; the difficulties of maintaining a traditional rural life; life during and after wartime (past and present); lovelorn gangsters and, of course, vampires in an all-girls school,” said Steve Gravestock, Associate Director, Canadian Programming, TIFF. “This year’s Canadian slate boasts veteran directors working at their peak and numerous homegrown stars returning to work in Canada, not only in front of the screen but behind it as well. Especially encouraging is the emergence of new voices from across the country.”

The Short Cuts Canada line-up will include 43 short films, including Mark Slutsky’s Sorry, Rabbi; Matthew Rankin’s Tabula Rasa; Craig Goodwill’s Patch Town; and Jean-Guillaume Bastien’s Sundays (Les dimanches).

The jury judging two Canadian features prizes are actor Liane Balaban, director Sturla Gunnarsson, journalist/producer Denis Seguin and producer Gabriella Martinelli; and the shorts jury is comprised of Sundance programmer John Korn, filmmaker Srinivas Krishna and Hot Docs programming manager Karina Rotenstein.

Toronto runs Sept 8-18.

World premieres in bold.

GALA
Starbuck, Ken Scott [WP]

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Afghan Luke, dir. Mike Clattenburg
Breakaway, dir. Robert Lieberman, Canada [WP]
Café de Flore, dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
Edwin Boyd, dir. Nathan Morlando [WP]
Goon,dir. Michael Dowse [WP]
Keyhole, dir. Guy Maddin [WP]
Monsieur Lazhar, dir. Philippe Falardeau
The Moth Diaries, dir. Mary Harron

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA
388 Arletta Avenue, dir. Randall Cole [WP]
Billy Bishop Goes to War, dir. Barbara Willis-Sweete [WP]
I’m Yours, dir. Leonard Farlinger [WP]
Sisters & Brothers, dir. Carl Bessai [WP]

MASTERS
Hard Core Logo II, dir. Bruce McDonald

REAL TO REEL
Pink Ribbons, Inc,dir. Léa Pool [WP]
Surviving Progress,dir. Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks [WP]

VANGUARD
Doppelgänger Paul,dirs. Dylan Akio Smith and Kris Elgstrand [WP]
i am a good person/i am a bad person, dir. Ingrid Veninger [WP]

CANADIAN OPEN VAULT
Hard Core Logo Bruce McDonald

CANADA FIRST
Wetlands (Marecages), dir. Guy Edoin (Quebec) [WP]
Amy George, dir. Yonah Lewis & Calvin Thomas (Ontario)
Leave It On The Floor, dir. Sheldon Larry (Ontario)
Nuit #1, dir. Anne Emond (Quebec) [WP]
The Odds, dir. Simon Davidson (British Columbia) [WP]
The Patron Saints, dirs. Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky (Quebec) [WP]
Romeo Eleven (Roméo Onze), dir. Ivan Grbovic (Quebec)

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