Additional Gala and Special Presentation Films

The festival announced additional galas and films for the Special Presentation programme.

The first showing of Gala films takes place at Roy Thomson Hall. To see films there, you must buy individual tickets when they go on sale to the general public on August 23 (August 20 if you are a donor of $1,000 or more). Note that Gala films usually have a second showing that takes place at other theatres at the festival; for those showings, you can purchase tickets starting September 3, or you can select those (non-Roy Thomson Hall) showings if you bought a package that lets you participate in the advanced lottery.

Special Presentation films are part of the normal festival; tickets for those go on sale September 3, or you can select them if you are in the advanced lottery.

Some highlights of the galas include:

Dean Spanley, starring Peter O'Toole (who I last saw at the festival in Venus), Jeremy Northam, Bryan Brown and Sam Neill.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond: based on a screenplay by Tennessee Williams, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn, and Ann-Margret.

The Lucky Ones: starring Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins and Michael Peña.

Nothing But the Truth: from director Rod Lurie, and starring Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga, Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, David Schwimmer, Noah Wyle and Angela Bassett. Sounds like the film was inspired by the Valerie Plame affair.

Pride and Glory: starring Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich and Jennifer Ehle. The plot of this film, following a family on both sides of the law, sounds quite similar to 2007's We Own the Night.

Burn After Reading: from the Coen brothers, starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins and Brad Pitt.

Public Enemy No. 1/Mesrine: starring Vincent Cassel, with Gérard Depardieu and Roy Dupuis.

Singh Is Kinng, starring Akshay Kumar, with Katrina Kaif and Om Puri.

Generally speaking, the stars usually show up for the first showing at Roy Thomson Hall, and occasionally show up for the second showing at the other theatres in the festival.

Highlights of the additional Special Presentations films:

New York, I Love You. This is apparently not yet the final cut of the film, and is a sequel of sorts to Paris, je t'aime, which I saw back in 2006 at the festival. The film consists of a number of shorts, filmed by well-known directors and actors, including: Allen Hughes, Shekhar Kapur, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Fatih Akin, Scarlett Johansson, Ivan Attal, Natalie Portman, Shunji Iwai, Jiang Wen, and Andrei Zvyagintsev, and starring such actors as Orlando Bloom, Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Christina Ricci, Julie Christie, Robin Wright Penn, Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Andy Garcia, Ethan Hawke, Maggie Q, Chris Cooper, Olivia Thirlby, Kevin Bacon, James Caan, Bradley Cooper, Drea de Matteo, John Hurt, Cloris Leachman, Carla Gugina, Goran Visnjic, Eva Amurri, Anton Yelchin, and Jacinda Barrett.

Additional details for all films can be found here:
http://tiffg.ca/mediacentre/viewrelease.aspx?recordId=584

Tags: 2008,films