TIFF releases first lineup for 2006 fest

(Canscene) –More than two dozen international films that have premiered elsewhere, including many of the winning movies from Cannes, will screen at this fall’s Toronto International Film Festival.

TIFF organizers have announced an initial slate of 26 international titles, including these from the Cannes Film Festival:

* Palme d’Or winner The Wind That Shakes The Barley, by esteemed British director Ken Loach.

* Babel, for which Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won best director.

* Cannes Grand Prix winner Flanders by French filmmaker Bruno Dumont.

* 12:08 East of Bucharest, Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumbolu’s debut feature and winner of the Camera d’Or.

* U.K. director Andrea Arnold’s first feature, Red Road, which won the Prix du Jury.

“Our primary allegiance at the festival is to our loyal audiences,” Noah Cowan, the Toronto event’s co-director, said in a statement. “We bring these films back to our continent for a ‘second unveiling.’ They are films that have moved us, by way of their beauty, originality and overall cinematic achievement.”

Other films set to receive their North American premiere at the glitzy Toronto festival include the controversial Chinese film Summer Palace, directed by Lou Ye, and the sexually explicit Shortbus, the eagerly awaited second feature from Hedwig and the Angry Inch director, writer and star John Cameron Mitchell.

The rest of the lineup for the 31st annual Toronto festival, which runs Sept. 7 to 16, will be revealed throughout the summer.

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