Heavyweights from Hollywood, Bollywood, European and Asian cinema — and the media who cover them —are set to arrive this September at the Toronto International Film Festival, a sign to organizers the event is strengthening its reputation as an international launch pad for films.

Festival chief executive and director Piers Handling and co-director Noah Cowan announced on Tuesday an exhaustive list of celebrities expected to attend the 31st annual event, which runs Sept. 7-16, as well as a final slate of titles rounding out this year's lineup.

Actor Amitabh Bachchan will be part of a panel of Bollywood stars speaking at the 31st annual Toronto International Film Festival.
(Rajesh Nirgude/Associated Press)

"Festivals are judged on many things. The primary thing we're judged on is the quality of the films. We're indisputably a leader in that area," Cowan told CBC Arts Online.

"Sometimes festivals are judged on stars. We've never really had a problem in that area," he added, soon after he and Handling had spent a solid four minutes breathlessly rhyming off just some of the festival's celebrities. The guest list tops 500 and runs from Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan to Chinese ingenue Zhang Ziyi, as well as Hollywood's Brad Pitt, France's Daniel Auteuil, Winnipeg's Guy Maddin and Spain's Pedro Almodovar.

World media, industry spotlight turn to TIFF

Controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore will discuss his work with festival-goers during one of the Maverick sessions.
(Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press)

"What's changed this year is the attention that's been lavished on the festival by worldwide media and the worldwide industry," Cowan said.

"We're seeing a lot of people, from a lot of different places, coming to Toronto to cover films produced where they come from, in order to report on the premiere. That's new. It means that Toronto is seen as the international launching pad for domestic releases worldwide."

Out of the 352 films to screen this year, 91 per cent are world, international or North American premieres — an important point for filmmakers who are eager to see what Toronto audiences think of their work, Cowan said.

In conversations with filmmakers from South Korea, Algeria or Hollywood, "Our audiences always come up. Premiering in front of our audiences is vital for them," he said.

"Everybody loves coming here to show their movie for the first time," he added, pointing out that many prefer to premiere their film for the public before it has even been shown to the press.

"They know they're going to be getting such an amazing reaction, such an enthusiasm and respect from the people attending."

Among the final titles added to the festival lineup Tuesday:

• Ridley Scott's A Good Year, an adaptation of the bestselling Peter Mayle novel starring Russell Crowe as a British man who finds himself in Provence owning a small failing vineyard.
• Douglas McGrath's Infamous, based on George Plimpton's book about Truman Capote and starring Toby Jones as the famed writer and Sandra Bullock as his lifelong friend and colleague Harper Lee.
• Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet, a period piece set in ancient China and inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet.
• The documentary Shot in the Dark, a highly personal directorial debut from Adrian Grenier (of HBO's Entourage ) in which the emerging actor engages in a quest for his estranged father.

Mavericks sessions to feature Moore, Waters, Bollywood stars

Other highlights announced Tuesday include the three Mavericks sessions, in which filmmakers discuss and share recent and upcoming projects with audience members.

Controversial documentarian Michael Moore will screen segments from his upcoming films Sicko and The Great '04 Slacker Uprising, as well as discuss his life since releasing his last film, Fahrenheit 9/11.

CBC Radio's Sook-Yin Lee will moderate a discussion between cult film director John Waters and up-and-coming filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell on the topic of boundary-pushing cinema. Lee stars in Mitchell's sexually explicit Shortbus, which is screening at the festival.

Writer Suketu Mehta will moderate a panel of Bollywood stars — Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherji — as they join director Karan Johar to discuss the popularity and rise of the Bollywood industry worldwide.

The festival will begin Sept. 7 with the previously announced opening night film The Journals of Knud Rasmussen by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn. It will end with another gala presentation: the world premiere of Michael Apted's Amazing Grace, about British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, who led the crusade to end the slave trade in 18th-century England.