Organizers at the World Film Festival took another shot at their old adversary Telefilm Canada on Tuesday even as they unveiled the 234 features and 221 other films set to unspool later this month in Montreal.

Festival VP Danièle Cauchard complained during the press conference at the Imperial Hotel that Telefilm’s new guidelines for festivals put the focus on Canadian flicks, while festivals like WFF need to be international. Montreal’s longtime mandate has been to put the spotlight on world films — many from unknown names — and the lineup for the 32nd edition is no different.

Just one U.S. film — Matthew Wilder’s Your Name Here, starring Bill Pullman as a science-fiction writer — is among the 20 movies competing for the Grand Prix of the Americas, the festival’s biggest prize.

Two Quebec films, Stéphane Géhami’s En plein coeur, about two hypersensitive people looking to be loved, and Benoît Pilon’s Ce qu’il faut pour vivre, about an Inuit hunter stricken with tuberculosis in the 1950s, are Canada’s entries in the world competition section, its main program. The festival no longer runs its all-Canadian program.

As well, 17 features by debut directors, including Canadian Alison Reid’s The Baby Formula, are vying for the Golden Zenith award in the First Films World Competition.

The festival will open with Paris 36 by French director Christophe Barratier on Aug. 21, making its world premiere about a month before its Sept. 24 theatrical release in parts of Europe. Alliance Vivafilm will release the film in Quebec this autumn.

The festival will also include tributes to Hollywood producer Alan Ladd Jr. and American actor Tony Curtis. American director Brian de Palma will conduct a master class. WFF runs until Sept. 1.

Cauchard said the fete poster unveiled Tuesday — featuring a cat with a big blue bowtie and glasses with huge green and red lenses — was à propos.

Just like the Montreal festival, she said, ‘A cat has nine lives and a cat always lands on its feet.’

The WFF’s future was widely debated in 2005 when Telefilm and SODEC diverted funding to the start-up New Montreal FilmFest, organized by L’Équipe Spectra. That year, WFF founder and president Serge Losique went ahead with his festival without government backing, while the NMFF lasted just its inaugural year.

Funding from Telefilm and the Quebec funding agency is ‘back to normal,’ according to WFF publicist Henry Welsh.

‘There’s no fight anymore. It’s no big deal,’ despite Cauchard’s remarks, he said. He would not reveal figures, saying the government agencies would make their own announcements. Telefilm also supported last year’s edition.

Quebecor came on board Tuesday as a sponsor, providing unspecified funds and a promotional campaign for WFF in its massive print and broadcast outlets.

‘It is a way to foster cultural diversity and open a window on the world. It is also a way to celebrate movies and the talented people who make them,’ said Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau of the sponsorship.

Some 105 features will make their international premieres at the WFF, many from emerging directors.

Screening out of competition are Woody Allen’s new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson; and American director Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a documentary about why the Polish director fled the U.S. 30 years ago; along with Australian helmer Christopher Weekes’ Bitter and Twisted; Japanese director Kenji Uchida’s After School; Chinese director Gao Qunshu’s Nick of Time (Old Fish); and American director Noah Buschel’s The Missing Person.

The festival also includes a retrospective of Russian musicals from the Soviet era and films from Germany’s largest state of Bavaria.

The world film competition jury is headed by Academy Award-nominated U.S. helmer Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond, Even Money) and includes French actress Evelyne Bouix, Chinese director Xie Fei, Czech director Vojtech Jasny, Haitian writer Dany Laferrière and Montreal resident Johanne Dugas, the winner of a contest to be the voice of the public.