A strong contingent of Canadian films highlight the Calgary International Film Festival’s Gala lineup this year, as Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children and Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral continue to make the festival rounds in Canada.

Midnight’s Children, based on Salman Rushdie’s novel about two children born at midnight on the day of India’s independence, will open the festival at the Red Carpet Gala Sept. 20.

Meanwhile, Antiviral, Cronenberg’s dystopian allegory about celebrity obsession, will be featured at the Black Carpet Gala Sept. 28.

The film sees an employee of a company that infects fans with viruses from their favourite stars race against time to solve the murder of an adored starlet and save his own life.

Closing out the festival Sept. 29 is Martin Villeneuve’s Mars et Avril, a science fiction romance set in a futuristic Montreal where man is about to set foot on the red planet.

Rounding out the galas is Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice, which follows National Geographic photographer and former climate change skeptic, James Balog, as he chronicles the disappearance of the world’s glaciers.

This Green Carpet Gala film will be screened Sept. 24.

Lastly, a retrospective gala will revisit Clint Eastwood’s famous western, Unforgiven, Sept. 22.

The Calgary International Film Festival runs Sept. 20 to 30.