Ralph Fiennes as the Duke of Devonshire and Keira Knightley as Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, star in The Duchess. (Nick Wall/Paramount Vantage) The Duchess, a period drama starring Keira Knightley, will have its international premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

The Duchess and The Secret Life of Bees, based on a bestselling novel, are gala presentations at TIFF, which runs Sept. 4-13.

On Thursday, the festival also announced films from Larry Charles, Mike Leigh, Guy Ritchie and Wong Kar-wai and added another 13 films to its international lineup.

Knightley is likely to be a red-carpet favourite for the premiere, along with co-star Ralph Fiennes.

The Duchess stars Knightley as Georgiana, an 18th century beauty who attracted a large circle of political and literary figures and became a campaigner for a political party — the Whigs — when such conduct by a woman was considered scandalous.

Fiennes plays her husband, the Duke of Devonshire, who appears to be the only man she can't seduce. The heavily promoted film is directed by Saul Dibb, the British director of The Line of Beauty.

Gina Prince-Blythewood, whose first feature was Love & Basketball and who has directed TV series such as Felicity and A Different World, helmed The Secret Life of Bees.

The film stars Dakota Fanning as a South Carolina girl who enters a world of bee-keeping, honey and the Black Madonna in the home of eccentric sisters played by Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo and Alicia Keys.

Hong Kong director Wong reworks his only martial arts film, previously unreleased in North America, in Ashes of Time Redux, which is one of seven Special Presentations announced Thursday.

The original film was made in 1994, but Wong has tweaked it for re-release. It showed at Cannes earlier this year.

A heartbroken, cynical mercenary

Thandie Newton as Stella and Gerard Butler as One Two in Guy Ritchie's action drama RocknRolla. (Alex Bailey/Warner Bros. Pictures) Leslie Cheung, a Hong Kong actor who committed suicide in 2003, stars as a swordsman who becomes a cynical mercenary after having his heart broken. Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Jacky Cheung also star in the film, based on Louis Cha's novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.

Charles, who debuted the wildly successful Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan at TIFF in 2006, returns with Religulous.

It follows sharp-tongued commentator Bill Maher as he travels the globe interviewing people about God and religion.

Other Special Presentations include:

• Every Little Step, by James Stern and Adam Del Deo, a theatrical documentary on the making of Broadway's A Chorus Line, first produced in 1975 and now undergoing a successful revival.
• Ghost Town by David Koepp, starring Ricky Gervais as a man who is revived after a near-death experience to discover he can see ghosts, and they all want something from him.
• Happy-go-Lucky, by British director Mike Leigh, a comedy about free-spirited school teacher and her uptight driving instructor.
• RocknRolla, by Guy Ritchie, an underworld caper involving a Russian mobster and a group of petty thieves.
• Waltz with Bashir, by Israeli director Ari Folman, about two men exploring their past, especially an Israeli Army mission in Lebanon in the early 1980s.

Another 13 international films have been added to the Masters and Contemporary World Cinema.

They include Everlasting Moments by Swedish director Jan Troell, whose As White As Snow screened at TIFF in 2001. His film is about a young Swedish woman whose life changes when she wins a camera in a lottery.

The winner of Un Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes 2008, Tokyo Sonata by Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, is making its North American premiere. It is about a family whose members each have secrets.