Montreal: When programming for the 34th Festival du Nouveau Cinéma was unveiled at a press conference on Sept. 27, a group of worn-out journalists looked on. This is, after all, the city’s third film festival in the fall season and, after the rather bruising inaugural edition of the New Montreal FilmFest, the last thing film critics here were eager for was yet another film festival.

The suggestion that FNC is really just ‘TIFF lite’ has dogged the Montreal festival for years – and there won’t be an end to that this time, given the bevy of titles that already played in Toronto, including Bennett Miller’s Capote, Jérôme Bonnell’s Mila from Mars, Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto, Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy, Lars von Trier’s Manderlay and Abel Ferrara’s Mary.

Many of the Canadian entries also screened at TIFF, including Terry Gilliam’s copro Tideland, Deepa Mehta’s Water, Thom Fitzgerald’s 3 Needles and Clement Virgo’s Lie with Me.

And yet, FNC director Claude Chamberlan described this year’s lineup as ‘among the best in the history of our event,’ adding proudly that ‘our team did all this in four and a half months.’ FNC runs Oct. 13-23 and will screen 197 films from 38 countries.

Chamberlan pointed out that while, yes, half of the titles were at Venice or Toronto, the remaining half are Canadian, North American or world premieres, going on to cite a number of FNC’s tributes and special events. ‘We have been very original, with very limited resources,’ Chamberlan said.

The late Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was killed last November on the streets of Amsterdam, will be paid homage to with a screening of his last film, 06/05.

The festival will also present a quartet of films about filmmakers, including After Frank, Walter Forsyth’s portrait of photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank; Mathieu Roy’s François Girard en 3 actes; Philippe Falardeau’s meditation on Robert Morin, La Méthode Morin; and Eva Ziemsen’s A Conversation with Lars von Trier.

There will also be tributes to Iranian and Nigerian (‘Nollywood’) cinema, and a complete retrospective of the work of Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov.

Questions immediately arose about the city’s ongoing festival wars. A number of FNC’s bigger screenings will take place at the Imperial Cinema, one of Montreal’s oldest historic downtown venues, which is owned by World Film Festival founder Serge Losique. This raised eyebrows, as Losique and Chamberlan were often seen as rivals – until 2005, when both found a common enemy in the upstart NMFF.

Asked about a possible alliance with Losique, Chamberlan declined to comment, saying only, ‘Serge Losique doesn’t run the Imperial. His son manages it.’

Some screenings will take place at the Cinéma du Parc, a three-screen repertory house, but none will be at the Ex-Centris, the city’s newest cinema complex, which also has three screens. Both are owned by mogul Daniel Langlois, who has distanced himself from the FNC.

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