Montreal: Quebec distributors will again showcase many of their most promising foreign and Canadian fall releases at the 19th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival.

The festival, which runs from Aug. 24 to Sept. 4, is expected to draw up to 300,000 movie-goers.

From a Canadian perspective, two films are entered in this year’s Official Competition, Robert Menard’s L’Enfant d’eau (Film Tonic) and Jean Marc Vallee’s Liste Noire (Astral Films.)

Produced by Menard and Roger Frappier, L’Enfant stars David La Haye and Marie-France Monette in a story about a retarded young man and a 12-year-old girl shipwrecked on a paradise island.

The film was shot on a budget of $3.2 million in the Bahamas in association with the National Film Board and was scripted by Claire Wojas.

Half a dozen prints will be released by Pierre Latour’s Tonic in local theatres after the festival.

The film is also slated to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Liste Noire was produced by Marcel Giroux of GPA Films on a budget of $1.8 million and stars Michel Cote, Genevieve Brouillette, Denis Mercier and Sylvie Bourque.

In this murder mystery, written by lawyer Sylvain Guy, a client list ends up on a judge’s desk after a prostitute takes cold revenge on her well-heeled clients.

Astral plans a major release, distributing the film on some 30-plus screens across Quebec.

Quebec releases

Among the theatrical hopefuls slated for the wff and commercial release by Quebec distributors this fall are:

– From Malofilm Distribution: Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon, winner of the ’95 Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Phillip Hass’ Angels and Insects, a Samuel Goldwyn release set in England in 1860, Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, a French (ugc)/u.s. coproduction about a nightmarish voyage by three young delinquents, and the critically acclaimed Mexican film, Robert Sneider’s Dos Crimines.

– From France Film: Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, a major box office hit in France with more than two million admissions, Christine Pascal’s Adultere, mode d’emploi, and Xavier Beauvoir’s N’oublie pas que tu vas mourir, a story about an art history student who discovers he has aids.

– From CFP Distribution: Jacques Perrin’s French film anthology, Les Enfants de lumiere, Robby Henson’s civil war drama Pharaoh’s Army, Theo Angelopoulos’ Le Regard d’Ulysse, Grand Prix Jury winner at Cannes, Florence Strauss’ Dans la cour des grands, a story about a troubled teenager who runs away from his ex-model mom, and Gogol Lobmayr’s Fascinating Nature, a German-produced landscape voyage.

– From Prima Film: veteran helmer Eric Rohmer’s Le Rendez vous de Paris, a fantasy about love and infidelity, Benoit Barbier’s L’Amour conjugal, an historical drama on the themes of love and vengeance starring Sam Frey and Caroline Sihol, and the Anne Fontaine comedy, Augustin.

– From Alliance Vivafilm: Margarethe Von Trotta’s La Promesse, the story of a couple separated by the Berlin Wall, Gary Felder’s light mob story, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, a Miramax release stateside, Michael Blackemore’s Country Life, an Australian social drama, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Beyond The Clouds, shot by the 80-plus-year-old director with a little help from Wim Wenders, and Claude Chabrol’s contemporary tale of voyeurism and murder, Le Ceremonie.

WFF ’95 highlights include a 22-film retrospective from the late Italian director Paolo Pasolini, a flash visit from French actor Gerard Depardieu, the festival’s honorary president, and a satellite press conference program with legendary European directors Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard.

Films in the Panorama Canada section include the opener Stephen Williams’ Soul Survivor, Jean Gagne and Serge Gagne’s La folie des crinolines, the Lois Siegel documentary Baseball Girls, director Rick Raxlen’s The Blues of Cowboy Red, the Reto Salimbeni feature debut Urban Safari, the latest Bashar Shbib thriller The Mule and The Emeralds, John May’s Rubber Carpet and two nfb films, James Purcell’s Fool Die Fast, based on a stageplay and set in the 1950s American Midwest, and Paul Cowan’s intimate portrait of first-year highschoolers, Lessons.

Also from the nfb, animation director Paul Driessen’s Vivaldi-inspired short The End of the World in Four Seasons, and the Norman Bailey documentary sequel, The True Story of Linda M.

This year’s wff tributes go to legendary Disney Studio animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

The tribute includes a screening of Frank and Ollie, a documentary tracing the two men’s brilliant 60-year career.