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TORONTO -- The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 30th edition Thursday with a most improbable Canadian film: Deepa Mehta's Hindi-language "Water," a drama about Indian child widows that was five years in the making and beset by rioting and death threats on location in India. " Toronto has pushed the boundaries of what defines a Canadian film," Mehta told the opening-night audience at Roy Thomson Hall while introducing her film's cast and crew, including Lisa Ray and John Abraham. " You don't have to be an Anglophone or a Francophone to be a Canadian, and that means a lot to me," Mehta, Indian-born and now living in Canada, told her gala audience. Introducing "Water," Toronto fest co-director Noah Cowan remarked how the festival had screened Mehta's work back to her first film, "Sam and Me," in 1991. Cowan called "Water," which Fox Searchlight acquired last week for U.S. distribution, a "searingly beautiful" film that offered a lesson in humanity. The 10-day Toronto festival also ushered in Hollywood's Oscar season, with a number of studio and indie pictures bowing here before potential awards-season success. The Philip Seymour Hoffman starrer "Capote," Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" and the festival closer "Edison" — a crime drama starring Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman — are just a few of the titles looking to repeat last year's rewarding ride from Toronto to the Oscars for "Ray," "Hotel Rwanda" and "Sideways." Also at Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto International Film Festival Group CEO Piers Handling welcomed "all who come here to do business," underlining the growing influence of the festival's informal sales market. Already, the list of stars in town to tout their latest films includes Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer with "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," Steve Martin and Claire Danes with "Shopgirl" and Bob Hoskins and Kelly Reilly trumpeting Stephen Frears' "Mrs. Henderson Presents." Also swelling the ranks in Toronto during the fest's 30th edition were Kurt Russell, Johnny Depp, Ed Harris, Heath Ledger, Jeff Bridges, Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Keira Knightley, Ray Liotta, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Bacon and Reese Witherspoon. The festival runs through Sept. 17. |
