Not one Hindi film at the 26th Toronto film fest

Ajit Jain
India Abroad correspondent in Toronto

Stay tuned for future announcements, says Toronto International Film Festival director Piers Handling about Hindi films.

The festival organisers have selected 300 films for showing during the 10-day event between September 6 and September 15 using 20 screens and 11 host hotels, including five partner hotels, in the heart of Toronto.

However, there is not a single Hindi film so far included in the list. Earlier festivals have screened several Hindi films and documentaries directed and/or produced by Indians and/or persons of Indian descent to standing ovation.

This year, festival organisers have selected a number of films but they are from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, etc, in the Asian section.

Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen was part of the film festival here a few years ago as well as several films of Ismail Merchant and Ali Kazmi's Narmada.

Some more films are in the process of being selected. Those names will be announced soon, Handling said, at the festival kick off press conference at the Regency ballroom of the prestigious Four Seasons Hotel, which was packed to its capacity with journalists and invited guests from the film industry.

The 26th Toronto festival will see the premiere of films like Dark Blue World (Jan Sverak, Czech Repulic), Hearts In Atlantis (starring Anthony Hopkins, directed by Scott Hicks), Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land, which, most interestingly, is a French, Italian, Belgian, British, Slovenian, and Bosnian co-production.

Handling calls it, "a feature debt (and) an innovative and stunning glimpse of the 1993 Bosnian conflict at the height of its strife."

Some Indian films could be included in the second or third round but nothing is known as yet.

This year, the festival introduces a new program devoted to the Canadian film history and its film-makers, Handling said.

The inaugural edition honours one of Canada's most innovative and enduring film-makers, Jean Pierre Lefebvre, in a Canadian Retrospective titled Jean Pierre Lefebvre: Videaste. It includes four of Lefebvre's 20 films.

The film festival, not for profit event, "delivers an economic impact of $ 30 million annually, including $ 7.5 million in tourism alone," said the festival's managing director Michele Maheux.

It is considered "the gateway to the North American film market, servicing thousands of international industry delegates" and "hosts and services more than 700 of the world's sales and acquisition executives."

About 1,000 volunteers work year-round to prepare for this 10-day event in the City, Maheux said.

You may also want to read:
Deepa Mehta -- an outstanding Canadian