Andre Turpin's Un Crabe Dans La Tete has been selected as the Opening Night film for the Toronto International Film Festival's Perspective Canada programme. Written and directed by the Quebecois filmmaker, the comedy features David La Haye, Isabelle Blais, Emmanuel Bilodeau and Chantal Giroux and is produced by Luc Dery and Joseph Hillel for Montreal-based Qu4tre par Quatre.

Other world premieres from Canadian filmmakers include Sturla Gunnarsson's Rare Birds, starring William Hurt, Molly Parker and Andy Jones; Lynne Stopkewich's Lilith On Top, a behind-the-scenes documentary of the all-female music festival Lilith Fair; Carl Bessai's Lola, starring Sabrina Grdevich and Colm Feore; Anne Wheeler's Suddenly Naked, starring Wendy Crewson.

Ten films in the programme are feature debuts, including David Weaver's Century Motel, William Phillips' Treed Murray and Helen Lee's The Art Of Woo.

The programme will also present the North American premiere of Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), the Camera d'or winner at Cannes this year. As announced previously, Vancouver filmmaker Bruce Sweeney's Last Wedding will open the festival proper.

According to a release, Un Crabe Dans La Tete stars LaHaye as Alex, a successful underwater photographer recovering from a recent diving mishap. Accustomed to traveling across the globe, he is forced to make a stop-over in Montreal, where a former girlfriend still resides. The compulsively charming Alex stays longer than planned to seduce another young woman, becoming embroiled in a plethora of relationships with everyone from an agoraphobic drug dealer to his best friend's hearing-impaired girlfriend.

Turpin's first feature, Zigrail, played the festival in 1995; he was DoP for last year's Perspective Canada opener, Denis Villeneuve's Maelstrom.

Perspective Canada Features:

L'Ange De Goudron, dir. Denis Chouinard

The Art Of Woo, dir. Helen Lee

Century Hotel, dir. David Weaver

Un Crabe Dans La Tete, dir. Andre Turpin

Cyberman, dir. Peter Lynch (documentary)

La Femme Qui Boit, dir. Bernard Emond

The Frank Truth, dir. Rick Caine (documentary)

Inertia, dir. Sean Garrity

Khaled, dir. Asghar Massombagi

Lilith On Top, dir. Lynne Stopkewich (documentary)

Lola, dir. Carl Bessai

Mariages, dir. Catherine Martin

On Their Knees, dir. Anais Granofsky

Rare Birds, dir. Sturla Gunnarsson

Suddenly Naked, dir. Anne Wheeler

Treed Murray, dir. William Phillips

Walk Backwards, dir. Laurie Maria Baranyay

Westray, dir. Paul Cowan (documentary)