By Anne Brodie Aug 11, 2006, 0:58 GMT
No wonder Toronto is the second most important international film festival after Cannes.
It is big, bold, public and exceptionally star-studded. The Bloor and Yorkville square is threatening to burst at the seams with the sheer force of star power.
This year's edition, from September 7 – 16th, will be star encrusted, paved, packed, you name it.
These are latest names added to the already bulging boldface visitors list - Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Penélope Cruz, Lindsay Lohan, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen, Elijah Wood, Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Zach Braff, Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Peter O'Toole, Blythe Danner, Reese Witherspoon, Christian Bale, Vince Vaughn, Don Cheadle, Mena Suvari, Morgan Freeman, Viggo Mortenson, Emmanuelle Beart, Harvey Keitel, Greta Scacchi, Brittany Murphy, Brian DePalma, Paul Haggis, John Cameron Mitchell, Christopher Guest and his merry band of faux documentarians, Costa-Gavras, Werner Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta, Tarsem Singh and Philip Noyce.
Emilio Estevez' 'Bobby' makes its North American premiere as a gala presentation. It tells the stories of people who brushed infamy at the Roosevelt Hotel in 1968, the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
For Your Consideration from Christopher Guest, skewers the film industry as Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey and the usual suspects make a film called 'Home for Purim.' Ricky Gervais joins the ensemble.
Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Joan Allen and Tom Skerritt star in 'Bonneville,' in which three older women traverse the country in search of something else besides the daily disappointments of their lives.
Pedro Almodóvar and his muse Penélope Cruz, bring 'Volver,' a tale of three generations of women who hail from a town where the high rate of insanity is attributed to the east wind.
Jennifer Lopez and her husband Marc Anthony star in 'El Cantante,' a music biz tale set in 60's Manhattan.
Anthony is a Frank Sinatra type crooner who embraces the 'high' life with tough broad Jennifer Lopez as his enabler.
Emma Thompson puzzles over how to kill off her main character in 'Stranger Than Fiction,' who, it turns out, lives in the real world and can hear her plotting his death.
Kenneth Branagh celebrates the 250th birthday of Mozart with 'The Magic Flute,' translated from the fairy tale land to World War 1. Stephen Fry provides a new libretto for the original opera music.
Hugh Jackman is Spanish conquistador Thomas Creo in 'The Fountain.' Born in the 16th century, Tom finds the Tree of Life and begins a long journey. We follow him as he lives through the centuries and into space, where he ponders the questions of a millennium.
Vince Vaughn's 'Wild West Comedy Show' takes us across the US with four aspiring comedians to find out what drives them and in what bus.
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