Zombies walk among us… again! OK, so it’s not so strange to see the dead walk on screen, but at least there’ll be nothing cute about the reanimated mofos in Pontypool, Bruce McDonald’s very long-awaited adaptation of Tony Burgess’ hallucinatory horror novel Pontypool Changes Everything. The movie was one of many scintillating announcements today at the Royal York as the Toronto International Film Festival — which runs Sept. 4-13 — unveiled its slate of homegrown selections. We’re just as stoked about Toronto Stories, an omnibus production that collects GTA-centric shorts by Sook-Yin Lee, Aaron Woodley, Sudz Sutherland and David Weaver, and new films by Quebecois faves Phillippe Falardeau (It’s Not Me, I Swear!), Rodrigue Jean (Lost Song) and Lea Pool (Maman est chez la coiffeur).
Canada First opens with Edison and Leo, the country’s first stop-motion animated feature and the handiwork of Rhinoceros Eyes animator Neil Burns. Among the other newbies to the fest are Randall Cole (his Slamdance opener Real Time) and Warren Sonoda (Cooper’s Camera, a comedy starring Daily Show power couple Jason Jones and Samantha Bee).
Indeed, the new guard looks set to outshine the vets, who are in short supply this time ‘round even if Deepa Mehta (Heaven on Earth) and Atom Egoyan (Adoration) are represented in Special Presentation slots. Joining Paul Gross’ WWI epic Passchendaele in the roster of Galas are Kari Skogland’s Fifty Dead Men Walking, an IRA thriller starring by the newly ubiquitous Jim Sturgess, and Michael McGowan’s One Week, which we hope doesn’t involve Joshua Jackson and Liane Balaban in an adaptation of the Barenaked Ladies song.