Reclusive filmmaker Woody Allen made his first-ever appearance at TIFF for the gala screening of Colin Farrell-starrer Cassandra’s Dream, which he likened to a ‘Greek tragedy’ at a jam-packed press conference on Tuesday.

Set in contemporary London, it follows two brothers, played by Farrell and Ewan McGregor, as they desperately try to better their troubled lives, until one meets an actress (Hayley Atwell), falls in love, and the entanglements lead to sinister results.

Flanked by Farrell, McGregor and Atwell, Allen told the press that he hopes the audience will ‘consider the tragic ironies of it, and the sadness of it, and contemplate that we have to live in a world with evil in it.’

A foul-mouthed Farrell said he chose the project for the same reason he’ll select any script or picture: ‘It better be something that I fucking like.’ He also joked that ‘actors are so fucking deified,’ that he might choose a project because of ‘the zeroes at the end of the cheque.’

The zeroes in Cassandra’s $15-million budget came with artistic freedom and ‘director’s cut’ from U.K.’s Iberville Productions.

‘I’ve been very lucky and a bit of a con man,’ Allen told the press. ‘I’ve always had ‘final cut,” an artistic privilege that is virtually extinct in America.

‘I’ve always said that the only thing standing between me and greatness is me,’ he quipped. ‘I have no one else to blame.’

Allen said he was about to lose that luxury when ‘London called and said ‘We’ll put the money up and we don’t care who’s in your film.”

Allen noted that he has never actually seen one of his own films after they’re finished. In 1968 he directed Take the Money and Run and, ‘I’ve never seen it since,’ nor any other of his pictures, including Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), both of which made an indelible mark on 20th century cinema.

Wild Bunch is handling international sales of Cassandra’s Dream. The Weinstein Company distributes stateside, and Christal Films Distribution has Canadian rights.