The buzz films at this year's TIFF

Last Updated: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 | 2:09 PM ET

By Jessica Wong, CBC News

Javier Bardem is a dying man burdened with responsibilities in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful. (Jose Haro/Maple Pictures)

The slate for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 9-19) is a touch slimmer than in years past — under 300 feature-length films, in fact — but cinephiles who’ve pored over the list agree it’s jam-packed with eagerly anticipated titles.

The wealth of this year’s offerings is such that directors like Robert Redford (The Conspirator), Ken Loach (Route Irish), Danny Boyle (127 Hours), Clint Eastwood (Hereafter) and Mike Leigh (Another Year) aren’t even the most notable filmmakers attending.

Here are some of the films generating the biggest buzz ahead of TIFF’s 35th edition.

Biutiful

This gritty redemption drama marks Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s first significant stint in the director’s chair since 2006’s Babel. It stars one of today’s hottest leading men, Spanish heartthrob Javier Bardem, whose soulful turn as a tragic, drug-dealing single dad facing his own mortality won him the best actor trophy at Cannes this spring.

Paul Giamatti and Rachelle Lefevre star in the screen version of Mordecai Richler's comic novel Barney's Version. (Sabrina Lantos/eOne Films)

Barney’s Version

Mordecai Richler’s CanLit classic finally hits the silver screen in this star-studded (Paul Giamatti! Dustin Hoffman!) labour of love that Canadian movie mogul Robert Lantos has worked on for more than a decade.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Though 3D movies seem to be ubiquitous at the multiplex of late, many filmgoers have yet to be convinced of the merits of the technology. The latest from German filmmaker Werner Herzog – a documentary about 32,000-year-old cave paintings – could just be the picture to change our minds. (Sorry, James Cameron.)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

This is the otherworldly film that, this past spring, made Apichatpong Weerasethakul the first Thai director to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes. The playful, meditative and surreal drama, about a man’s deathbed musings on reincarnation, has garnered raves from critics, film programmers and adventurous movie fans on the festival circuit.

Black Swan

Movie fans of all stripes seem to be stoked for Darren Aronofsky’s follow-up to The Wrestler. The American director delves into the ultra-competitive world of professional ballet with Black Swan, a psychological thriller he’s apparently been planning for years. While some were piqued by the much-blogged-about kiss/love scene between star Natalie Portman and sensual rival ballerina Mila Kunis, others are simply looking forward to Black Swan as a return to the mind-bending quality of Aronofsky’s earlier work (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain).

Norwegian Wood

A starring role for Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) and a score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood have helped draw attention to Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung’s adaptation of the bestselling and much-loved novel by Haruki Murakami.

Actors, left to right, Domhnall Gleeson, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrea Riseborough in a scene from Never Let Me Go. (Alex Baile/Fox Searchlight)

Never Let Me Go

Take a Booker-nominated novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and blend in a trio of the U.K.’s most comely and talented young actors – Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Sally Hawkins – and you’ve got Never Let Me Go, early previews of which have won raves from British critics.

I Saw the Devil

A cult film fan’s heart races upon hearing terms like “ultra-violent,” “banned,” “scenes cut” and “restricted rating.” For their consideration, TIFF presents I Saw the Devil, an extreme and gory revenge thriller from director Kim Ji-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters; The Good, the Bad, the Weird). This serial-killer tale is fresh from South Korea, where the filmmaker was forced to make multiple edits before the country’s film board would even grant this picture an 18+ rating.

Meek’s Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt’s last film, the quiet indie drama Wendy and Lucy, landed on many best-of-2008 lists, including best picture and best actress (Michelle Williams) honours from the Toronto Film Critics Association. Expectations are high for Reichardt and Williams’s latest collaboration. The 19th-century period drama Meek’s Cutoff tracks a group of settlers who make the dangerous decision to follow a wild-eyed mountain man through an unmarked Oregon trail.

Incendies

Lubna Azabal stars in Denis Villeneuve's film of the Wajdi Mouawad play Incendies. (eOne Films)

No stranger to controversy, Polytechnique director Denis Villeneuve returns with Incendies, the movie adaptation of Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wajdi Mouawad’s work, which finds twins facing their mother’s disturbing past when they embark on a journey to the Middle East after her death.

Miral

Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto is already garnering award-season hype for Julian Schnabel’s Miral, about the forming of the Dar Al-Tifel Institute orphanage for Palestinian refugees and the coming of age of one of its charges, a young woman who struggles between peaceful and violent means of resistance. The powerful story, based on the novel by Rula Jebreal, has attracted the interest of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who will distribute the film in the U.S. “As a staunch supporter of Israel, I thought this would be a movie I would have a hard time wrapping my head around,” Weinstein has said. “However, meeting Rula moved me to open my heart and mind, and I hope we can do the same with audiences worldwide.”

The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen will bring some old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll to TIFF’s red carpet this year, when he stops by to help unveil The Promise, a movie focused on the making of his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town. The documentary, made by Thom Zimny, blends archival studio footage and new interviews with the Working Man’s Hero himself, members of his E Street Band and Patti Smith, who co-wrote the track Because the Night.

I’m Still Here

Is this an honest depiction of an actor attempting an artistic crossover? A performance art piece about the perils of celebrity culture? Or a giant, Borat-style hoax? It remains to be seen what’s up in Casey Affleck’s directorial debut, a film purportedly about his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix’s reinvention as a hip-hop artist.

The Illusionist

Sylvain Chomet, the man behind the exuberant and stunning animated film The Triplets of Belleville, returns with another visual feast. The Illusionist is a deliciously retro-looking and melancholy tale of a fading magician, based on an unproduced 1956 story by French comedy great Jacques Tati.

And three pictures sure to spark controversy

There are inevitably films that spark heated debate at TIFF. This year is no exception. We have the latest from radical French filmmaker Catherine Breillat (Sleeping Beauty), known for her frank depictions of sex; Bruce LaBruce’s notorious zombie-gay-porn art film (L.A. Zombie); and the menacing-looking Our Day Will Come, the feature directorial debut of Romain Gavras, who helmed rapper M.I.A.’s contentious music video Born Free.

The 2010 Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 9-19.

Jessica Wong writes about the arts for CBC News.