Canadian Favourites Return With Gala And Special Presentations

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival is pleased to announce the addition of two Gala Presentations and three Special Presentations to the programming lineup for TIFF ’08, which runs September 4 through 13. Returning Canadian favourites include Deepa Mehta, Don McKellar, Kari Skogland, Joshua Jackson, Philippe Falardeau, Liane Balaban, Kevin Zegers and Michael McGowan. Ticket Packages now on sale. Purchase online at tiff08.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM or in person at the Festival Box Office at Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (main floor, north entrance). Box Office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

GALA PRESENTATIONS

Fifty Dead Men Walking Kari Skogland, Canada/UK
World Premiere
In the late 1980s, with the Irish civil conflict at its most treacherous, 22-year-old Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is recruited by the British police to infiltrate and spy on the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Working his way up through the ranks as a volunteer for the IRA while simultaneously feeding information to his British handler, McGartland lives his life under the constant threat of being exposed as an informant. This double life, a secret kept even from those closest to him, begins to unravel and the threat of exposure becomes a harrowing reality when McGartland is captured and tortured to within an inch of his life. Against the odds, he manages a daring escape. To this day, Martin McGartland is still on the run. This film is inspired by the book entitled ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’ written by Martin McGartland and Nicholas Davies. Some of the events, characters and scenes in the film have been changed. A TVA Films presentation, Fifty Dead Men Walking is directed by Kari Skogland (The Stone Angel, TIFF 2007) and also stars Sir Ben Kingsley, Rose McGowan and Kevin Zegers.

One Week Michael McGowan, Canada
World Premiere
Suddenly confronted with his mortality, Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson) impulsively purchases a vintage motorcycle and embarks on a cross-Canada road trip in order to escape an impending marriage, an unfulfilling job and medical treatment that will compromise his way of life. Believing the trip to be unwise and reckless, his fiancée Samantha (Liane Balaban) refuses to accompany him, leaving him to contend with the immensity of the Canadian landscape and the enormity of his recent diagnosis on his own. In his travels, Ben encounters several individuals who help him to understand what he believes in and what he really wants out of life. While hiking in Banff, Ben becomes desperately lost and begins feeling the effects of the altitude or his illness, or both. Here in the mountains, in this moment of weakness, he has an intense encounter with a woman named Tracey (Emm Gryner), whose presence forces him to reevaluate his relationship with Samantha. Making a commitment to live a lifetime in each day, Ben opts to continue his westward journey. Finally, he arrives in Tofino, British Columbia, at mile zero of the Trans-Canada highway -- after a 4,000 kilometre journey, Ben has run out of west, unsure of which way to turn. Directed by Michael McGowan (Saint Ralph, TIFF 2004), the film also features performances by Campbell Scott and Gord Downie. One Week is a Mongrel Media presentation.

SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS

C'est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s Not Me, I Swear!) Philippe Falardeau, Canada
World Premiere
In the summer of ’68, Léon Doré comes close to hanging himself accidentally. His mother Madeleine saves him at the last minute, just like last summer in the pool, just like two years ago in the freezer. At ten, Léon has lots of problems and an overly fertile imagination. There is Mom and Dad who are always fighting and those annoying neighbours who get to spend the summer at the beach. And then, there’s Lea, the exasperating girl who’s always right about everything. When Mom decides to leave everything behind to start a new life in Greece, Léon is prepared to do anything to kill the pain -- destroy the neighbours’ house, become a professional liar and even, why not, fall in love with Lea. Together, they will overcome the pain of growing up when you feel abandoned. Based on Bruno Hébert's critically acclaimed novel, C'est pas moi, je le jure! (It’s Not Me, I Swear !) is directed by Phillippe Falardeau (La moitié gauche du frigo, TIFF 2000).

Heaven on Earth Deepa Mehta, Canada
World Premiere
Bollywood superstar Preity Zinta plays Chand, a vibrant young woman who travels from India to Canada where her new husband Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj) and his very traditional family await. Everything is new to Chand, including the quiet and shy Rocky, whom she meets for the first time at the airport. Chand approaches her new life and new country with equanimity and grace but, optimism soon gives way to alienation as she finds herself in the midst of a collective frustration. No one feels the pressure more than Rocky, burdened by familial obligations here and abroad -- unable to express his frustrations, Rocky finds other ways to release his anger, with Chand bearing the brunt of his repressed rage. Trapped in a world she cannot comprehend and seemingly unable to please her husband, Chand turns to her co-worker Rosa (Yanna McIntosh), a tough and savvy Jamaican-Canadian woman, who gives her a magical root, promising that it will make Rocky fall deeply in love with her. Soon, surreal incidents occur and Chand’s life begins to mirror an Indian fable involving a King Cobra. As the lines between fantasy and reality converge, Chand and Rocky come face to face with each other and themselves.

Blindness Fernando Meirelles, Canada/Brazil/Japan
North American Premiere
It begins in a flash, as one man is instantaneously struck blind while driving home from work, his whole world suddenly turned to an eerie, milky haze. One by one, each person he encounters will in due course suffer the same unsettling fate. As the contagion spreads, and panic and paranoia set in across the city, the newly blind victims of the “White Sickness” are rounded up and quarantined within a crumbling, abandoned mental asylum, where all semblance of ordinary life begins to break down. But inside the quarantined hospital, there is one secret eyewitness: one woman (four-time Academy Award™-nominee Julianne Moore) is pretending to be blind in order to stay beside her beloved husband (Mark Ruffalo). Armed with increasing courage and the will to survive, she will lead a makeshift family of seven people on a journey to break out of the hospital and into the devastated city where they may be the only hope left. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, TIFF 2002), from a screenplay by Don McKellar (based on the international bestseller by José Saramago), Blindness also stars Alice Braga, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura, Don McKellar, Maury Chaykin, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal.

The Special Presentations programme is made possible through the generous sponsorship of American Movie Classics Company LLC.

Bell Lightbox
Construction of Bell Lightbox, soon to be one of the world’s leading innovative cultural institutions – a truly global “home for film” – began on February 1, 2007. A five-storey podium building located on Reitman Square in the heart of Toronto’s downtown entertainment district, Bell Lightbox is designed by world-renowned Toronto-based architectural firm KPMB. The building includes five cinemas, two galleries, three learning studios, and an enhanced film reference library and archive. Visit belllightbox.ca for more information.