The lineup of Canuck films on the fall festival circuit is chock-full of terrific comedies and intense literary adaptations, led by Kari Skogland’s The Stone Angel, the ideal opener for the Canadian Images program.

The Stone Angel, based on Margaret Laurence’s classic novel about Hagar (Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn), an old woman looking back on her life and loves, was shot in Winnipeg and is produced by the Toronto-based Skogland and Manitoba’s Buffalo Gal Pictures.

VIFF’s Canadian Images will unspool 82 features and shorts – both dramas and docs – with a lineup of celluloid hot off the plane from TIFF, including Jeremy Podeswa’s adaptation of the Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces, Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments, based on the book by Maureen Medved, and Clement Virgo’s Poor Boy’s Game.

Western filmmakers include Bruce Sweeney (American Venus) and Carl Bessai (Normal) of Vancouver and Winnipeg’s Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg).

One film looking to crack them up is Quebec’s current box-office champ, Patrick Huard’s comedy Les 3 p’tits cochons, which has rung up $3.2 million and counting at the belle box office for Christal Films.

VIFF will host the world premieres of three features – Taming Tammy from Vancouver filmmaker Tracy D. Smith, British director Paul Unwin’s Elijah, and Quebec filmmaker Matthiew Klinck’s Hank and Mike. Mike Barker’s Shattered makes its Canadian premiere.

Snagging premieres does not top the agenda for VIFF’s Canadian Images, according to its programmer Terry McEvoy, who thinks like a people-pleasing distributor.

‘It is most important for me to satisfy our audiences with a great film,’ he explains. ‘So I wouldn’t turn down a film that a Vancouver audience would appreciate in order to satisfy my ego and get a film they would enjoy less in order to have more premieres.’ That should be music to fest funder Telefilm Canada’s ears, as the Crown corporation’s festival mandate is to reach Canadians.

McEvoy says he aims to accomplish several goals with the program.

‘First of all, I am trying to get bums in seats, so I definitely want films that will appeal to our sophisticated Vancouver film audience,’ he explains. ‘I also look for an outrageous premise or an extraordinary idea carried out well, or a film that is technically excellent. A combination of the two is ideal.’

McEvoy will also program movies financed for TV, as long as they are, in his estimation, well-crafted and tell a great story.

Elijah, a B.C./Manitoba copro commissioned as a CTV MOW, will receive its world premiere at VIFF. ‘Most of these films ultimately end up on TV anyway,’ notes the pragmatic programmer.

Elijah is a docudrama about the life of Elijah Harper, an aboriginal politician who changed the course of Canadian history by defying former prime minister Brian Mulroney and bringing the Meech Lake Constitutional Accord to a grinding halt in 1990.

‘It’s a David and Goliath-type story,’ says Kevin Eastwood, supervising producer for Anagram Pictures of Vancouver. ‘Elijah Harper was a very unlikely hero. He was unassuming and shy, in debt and with his marriage faltering at the time he did this very symbolic act.’

Cast includes Billy Merasty as Harper, as well as Tina Louise Bomberry (Blue Murder), Gabrielle Miller (Corner Gas) and Gary Farmer (One Dead Indian). Written and exec produced by Blake Corbet (Fido), the pic is directed by Britain’s Oscar-nominated Unwin (Poirot) on a $5-million budget.

Meanwhile, Smith’s directorial debut Taming Tammy is a spirited modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. The romantic comedy centers on Tammy (Sarah-Jane Redmond), a feisty sex-toy party organizer who is happily single until a scheme is orchestrated to set her up with an ex-boxing champ (Aleks Paunovic).

‘It is the battle of the sexes taken to the extreme,’ says Smith, who worked in development at Brightlight Pictures for several years.

Smith’s financing is nearly as comical as her film. She cobbled together $10,000 by asking cast, crew and members of the local Vancouver film industry to invest $200 in the film, in exchange for 2% of the back-end. The seven producers on the film used their contacts in the industry to get most of their equipment and materials sponsored or at a discounted rate, and their volunteer cast and crew shot the film over six weekends using a mini DV camera.

‘Premiering in Vancouver couldn’t be more perfect because this film is such a community effort,’ says Smith.

Expect crazy and weird in Hank and Mike from Quebec’s Pierre Even – producer of boffo box-office drama C.R.A.Z.Y. – who teamed up with Toronto producer Nicholas Tabarrok (Weirdsville) to produce a comedy about two blue-collar Easter bunnies.

Tabarrok notes that these Easter bunnies ‘drink and smoke and hang out at strip joints.’

Klinck’s sophomore feature, following Greg & Gentillon, follows the Easter bunnies after they get fired and are forced to try their hand at an assortment of odd jobs, failing miserably at each.

Hank & Mike is written by the film’s Quebec stars, Thomas Michael and Paolo Mancini, who appear in rabbit costumes. It’s based on characters they originated on The Comedy Network series Y Be Normal. Shot in Toronto for under $2 million, it’s distributed in Canada by Christal Films. Shoreline Entertainment handles international sales.

Shattered (formerly known as Butterfly on a Wheel) is English director Barker’s thriller starring Maria Bello and Gerard Butler as a couple whose child is being held hostage by a sociopathic kidnapper (Pierce Brosnan).

Written by William Morrissey (The Rocket Post) and shot in Vancouver, which doubles for Chicago, the film is produced by the local Infinity Features and the U.K.’s Icon Productions and Irish DreamTime. Distributors are Maple Pictures (Canada), Lionsgate (U.S.) and Icon Entertainment (International).