Gala Presentations at the 29th Toronto International Film Festival, running Sept. 9-18, will include the world premiere of director/producer Taylor Hackford’s Ray, starring Jamie Foxx. The dramatic feature is a biopic of the late musician Ray Charles. Tom Hooper’s Red Dust, starring Hilary Swank, also makes its world premiere, and Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers will make its North American premiere.

The festival unveiled its gala lineup at a Toronto press conference July 13.

Festival organizers also confirmed five titles for this year’s Visions program: Francoise Romand’s Theme Je makes its international premiere, while Lukas Moodysson’s A Hole in My Heart, Shinya Tsukamoto’s Vital and Lisandro Alonso’s The Dead make their North American premieres. And Jonathan Caouette’s $218.32 video diary Tarnation makes its Canadian premiere.

This year’s National Cinema program, South Africa: Ten Years Later, profiles features, documentaries and short films from South African filmmakers, including Zola Mesko, Ian Gabriel, Teddy Matterra, Ramadan Suleyman, Tony Strasborg, Mark Bamford and Mickey Dube.

The Masters program will present the North American premieres of Jean-Luc Godard’s Notre Musique, Benoit Jacquot’s A Tout de suite and Patricio Guzman’s Salvador Allende. Chantal Akerman’s Demain on demenage will also make its Canadian premiere during the Masters program.

As announced previously, Istvan Szabo’s Being Julia will open this year’s festival. It is the ninth film produced by Robert Lantos to open TIFF.

‘We are thrilled to open this year’s festival with Being Julia,’ says Piers Handling, CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. ‘Szabo has made a tremendously playful and uplifting film, capturing the effervescence of 1930s theatrical life with graceful panache.’

Written by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and based on W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Theatre, the film is about Julia Lambert, a stage actress in London’s West End played by Annette Bening, who, at the peak of her career, becomes entangled in a dangerous love affair and ends up putting on the performance of a lifetime to get even with her American lover.

In other program news, the festival officially retired Perspective Canada, its 20-year-old survey of Canadian films, replacing it with Canada First, a program featuring emerging filmmakers who are presenting their first feature, or their first feature on the festival circuit. In addition, the festival is also launching Short Cuts Canada, which will feature between 30 and 40 homegrown shorts. Canadian films accepted to this year’s festival are expected to be announced in early August.

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004