Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel, centre) believes he's the reincarnation of communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Jacob Tierney's comedy, The Trotsky. (Alliance Films)

The Trotsky, directed and written by Montreal's Jacob Tierney, will make its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Starring Jay Baruchel, the film follows the adventures of a high school student who believes he is the reincarnation of Soviet revolutionary thinker Leon Trotksy.

The Trotsky debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009 and is included among 17 films in the Discovery program at Tribeca, the annual Manhattan-based film festival.

It is one of three Canadian films in the lineup, including Cairo Time and a music documentary about the Canadian band Rush. Tribeca announced the bulk of its film program on Monday.

Cairo Time is the Ruba Nadda feature about a woman seduced by the beauty of the Egyptian city and attracted to her Egyptian host.

RUSH: Beyond the Lighted Stage, is a documentary by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, Canadians who have made music documentaries a specialty. The filmmakers released Metal: A Headbanger's Journey in 2005 and Global Metal in 2007.

Their newest documentary follows Rush members Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart from their beginnings in the early 1970s to the present.

Other narrative and documentary features in the Encounters series include a concert film featuring Billy Joel, a portrait of British punk rocker Ian Dury and a film about Vidal Sassoon.

French director Jean-Paul Salomé has also created a new feature, The Chameleon, about a teen who goes missing for three years, then resurfaces with amnesia. His sister is welcoming, but an FBI agent has suspicions about his background.

The film, supposedly based on a true story, has similarities to the story of Philip Staufen, who walked into a Toronto hospital in 1999 claiming to have been mugged and was dubbed "Mr. Nobody." Later investigation, including a documentary by CBC's the fifth estate, revealed he may be a male model escaping his past.

The Spotlight section features films starring Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall.

Farrell appears in Neil Jordan's Ondine, as a fisherman who reels in a mermaid, and Duvall stars in Get Low, a folk tale set in Tennessee in the 1930s.

The Tribeca Film Festival is scheduled for April 21 to May 2.