The late Tracy Wright, left, and Molly Parker star in Bruce McDonald's new rock-themed film Trigger, which will premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. (TIFF)New films from Bruce McDonald, Jacob Tierney and Denis Villeneuve are just a few of the homegrown offerings that will unspool at the Toronto International Film Festival this September.

Organizers announced on Tuesday a list of Canadian features and shorts joining the lineup of the 2010 edition of the festival.

"Each and every year, we're really blown away by what we see: the depth and the breadth of the talent that surfaces when we're considering the Canadian feature and short film selections for the festival. From first-time filmmakers to longtime filmmakers, we are always given an abundance of top-notch filmmakers to choose from," TIFF chief executive Piers Handling said at the afternoon announcement Tuesday.

This year, accomplished veterans such as McDonald and Sturla Gunnarsson will premiere new productions alongside rising stars such as Tierney and Xavier Dolan.

Gunnarsson's Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie, a documentary portrait of the famed Canadian environmentalist, is among the latest additions to the Special Presentations program. Others include:

• Good Neighbours, in which director Jacob Tierney reunites with the star of his 2009 feature film The Trotsky,Jay Baruchel, for a thriller involving the inhabitants of a Montreal apartment building.
• Incendies, Polytechnique director Denis Villeneuve's family drama based on the acclaimed Wajdi Mouawad play.
• Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats), Xavier Dolan's sophomore feature, a comedy about two friends who fall in love with the same man.
• Repeaters, film veteran Carl Bessai's thriller about three addicts in rehab.
• Trigger, the Canadian star-studded (Sarah Polley, Don McKellar, Callum Keith Rennie), McDonald-directed, Daniel MacIvor-penned film charting the reunion of a rock duo portrayed by Molly Parker and the late Tracy Wright.

McDonald's Trigger has been chosen to be the first film to have its premiere at TIFF's splashy new headquarters, Lightbox, which will open its doors during this year's event.

'Toronto seldom looks hipper than when it's in a Bruce McDonald movie.'—Steve Gravestock, TIFF

It's a perfect choice, according to the festival's Canadian programming head Steve Gravestock, who hailed the influential Toronto director for his mentorship of younger filmmakers and influence on the city's film scene.

"Bruce obviously has a foot in a variety of pans. His stuff has a hipster element, obviously with Trigger. But he also has, if you see something like The Tracey Fragments or Pontypool, there's a definitely a connection to that art house tradition and pushing boundaries like Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg," Gravestock said.

"Toronto seldom looks hipper than when it's in a Bruce McDonald movie."

Organizers also added A Beginners Guide to Endings, Jonathan Sobol's family comedy featuring Harvey Keitel, to the lavish Galas program. There, it will join previously announced high-profile Canadian movies such as Barney's Version and opening film Score: A Hockey Musical.

Other additions include:

• Five Canadian films, including Louis Bélanger's drama Route 132 (about a man coming to terms with loss), have been added to the festival's Contemporary World Cinema bill.
• Joining previously announced titles in the Real to Reel program will be Canadian comedy documentary How to Start Your Own Country (Jody Shapiro's look at micro-nations) and The Man of a Thousand Songs, William MacGillivray's portrait of Atlantic songwriter Ron Hynes.
• Quebec filmmakers Denis Côté and Catherine Martin have been added to the Visions program, for the dramas Curling and Trois temps après la mort d'Anna, respectively.
• Michael Dowse's Fubar II, a sequel to his cult hoser hit, will open the Midnight Madness series.
• B.C. filmmaker Mike Goldbach's sinister small-town drama Daydream Nation will open Canada First, which celebrates cinematic debuts.
• A re-struck print of the late Allan King's acclaimed film A Married Couple will be screened in the Open Vault program.

"I knew Allan. I spoke at his memorial. He was one of my favourite people," Gravestock said of King, who died in June 2009.

When TIFF mounted a King retrospective and published a book about the filmmaker nearly a decade ago, "he could have treated me like a flunky, [but] he was just a prince," Gravestock recalled.

"He was just a lovely, lovely guy. You were always happy to be in the same room with him."

The Toronto International Film Festival takes place Sept. 9-19.