he Toronto International Film Festival has already announced most of the movies that will be appearing at the 33rd fest. Over the past few weeks titles like Larry Charles’ Religulous have been dropped. However, the bulk of the Canadian content had yet to be announced. Sure, Paul Gross’ big budget war movie Passchendaele had already been named as the opening film, ditto Adam Egoyan’s Adoration which will get a special screening. But these movies were inevitably going to be part of the Toronto Fest. With respected Canadian filmmakers in the director’s chair, they were practically admitted into TIFF the day they started shooting. However, what other works of cinematic Canadiana would be appearing at the festival remained a mystery.

The first title announced was an obvious one. After opening the Cannes Film Festival to mixed warm reviews, Fernando Meirelles’s Blindness will be granted a special screening. Written by Don McKellar and based on a apocalyptic novel by Jose Saramago, the film stars Julianne Moore as one of the few people in the world able to avoid a sudden epidemic of blindness (get the title yet?). Even though the movie wasn’t instantly loved at Cannes, the talent involved with the project is simply too strong to ignore…and besides, the Cannes critics are normally so movie drunk they can’t even see straight (hence their shocking acceptance of the latest Indiana Jones film). The other Canadian films appearing in special screenings are Philippe Falardeau’s It’s Not Me, I Swear-the first of about 800 Canadian coming of age films announced- and Deepa Metha’s highly anticipated fantasy Heaven On Earth. Metha appeared briefing at the conference commenting that the film meant a great deal to her as it is about her “two worlds coming together: Canada and India…and they come together in Brampton.”