A new Canadian Retrospective and an avant-garde film program, as well as a spotlight on films from the Nordic countries, are among the newest features at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running Sept. 6-15.

The inaugural edition of Canadian Retrospective is a program dedicated to Canadian film history and filmmakers, entitled Jean Pierre Lefebvre: Videaste. It will include four of Lefebvre’s 20 feature films, as well as L’Age des images, an investigation of the cultural signs of contemporary life consisting of five videos – four 50-minute essays and a short fictional feature – created by Lefebvre between 1993 and 1995. Also in honor of the great filmmaker, the festival is publishing a monograph on Lefebvre, compiled by Peter Harcourt.

Showcasing new works by artists who use film as a means of personal expression, the inaugural avant-garde film program, Wavelengths, explores the boundaries of film with works from such filmmakers as Robert Breers, Matthias Muller and Stan Brakhage.

Nordic Visions, this year’s national cinema spotlight, focuses on recent films from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. Showcasing 13 feature films and one short, Nordic Visions promises to reveal the vital and diverse contribution of this region of contemporary, international film.

Among the titles confirmed in the program is the North American premiere of Italian For Beginners, a Dogme 95 film by director Lone Scherfig. The film is described as a spirited romance that revolves around an Italian class packed with lovelorn misfits.

The Canadian Open Vault, an initiative of the festival’s Film Circuit that showcases Canadian classics during the festival, will this year screen The Grey Fox, Phillip Borsos’ 1982 classic starring the late Richard Farnsworth. The film tells the story of an elderly robber who is inspired to pull off a few more heists after his release from prison at the turn of the century.

So far, the festival has announced one world premiere, one international premiere and two North American premiere galas.

Fred Schepisi’s Last Orders, a world premiere, is about a road trip precipitated by the last wishes of a dear friend, starring Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Ray Winstone.

From Jan Sverak, director of the Academy Award-winning Kolya, comes the international premiere gala presentation of Dark Blue World, the story of two WWII Czech pilots who fall in love with the same Englishwoman.

The two North American premieres include Scott Hicks’ (Shine) Hearts in Atlantic, the story of the mysterious Ted Brautigan who befriends young Bobby Garfield, bringing magic and mystery to the last summer of the boy’s childhood, starring Anthony Hopkins and Anton Yelchin. William Goldman wrote the screenplay.

Danic Tanovic’s feature debut, No Man’s Land, has its North American premiere as a gala. The film explores what happens when two enemy soldiers become stranded between the battle lines, and can find little reason to keep on fighting.

Through the Masters program, some of the world’s most renowned directors will be bringing their latest films to the festival, including Ken Loach’s The Navigators, Eric Rohmer’s L’Anglaise et le duc, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, Shohei Imamura’s Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse and Manoel de Oliveira’s Je Rentre a la Maison. *

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest