Although there are no new Egoyan or Cronenberg flicks at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the event promises several heavy-hitting Canuck helmers. Features by the likes of Deepa Mehta, Guy Maddin, Gary Burns, Vincenzo Natali and John Greyson were announced among the lineup for this year’s fest, running Sept. 4-13.

The Republic of Love, the latest film by Toronto-based Mehta, whose musical hit Bollywood/Hollywood launched at TIFF 2002, will make its world premiere as one of 18 Viacom Gala presentations. Galas are TIFF’s most high-profile showcase – the films are screened at Roy Thomson Hall with filmmakers, stars and paparazzi aplenty on hand.

Piers Handling, TIFF president and executive director, told reporters at the Toronto press conference that Republic was Mehta’s best film to date, and interest in it has also risen with the passing of Carol Shields. The film is based on the late Canadian Pulitzer-winning author’s novel about the love affair between the idealistic Fay (Emilia Fox) and late-night DJ Tom (Bruce Greenwood).

Republic joins Montrealer Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions Barbares in the Gala program. Arcand’s film, which already opened on Quebec screens after an award-winning run at Cannes, was previously announced as TIFF 2003’s Opening Night Gala.

A Problem with Fear, a world premiere from cult Calgary director Burns (waydowntown), will launch the Perspective Canada series. The typically quirky story follows a paranoid young man who believes his personal fears are responsible for the deaths of various urbanites.

‘We think Gary Burns is one of the preeminent filmmakers in this country,’ said series programmer Stacey Donen, adding that although Burns may not yet be a household name, this film may change that.

Nothing, a sci-fi comedy from Toronto director Natali, will also screen in Perspective Canada. It has been six years since Natali walked away from TIFF with the Citytv Award for best Canadian first feature for Cube. Canadian audiences haven’t seen anything from the promising filmmaker since then, as his sophomore Hollywood feature Cypher remains unreleased.

Greyson (The Law of Enclosures) returns to TIFF with Proteus, a South African copro drama that explores the interaction among three young men in the prison garden of an 18th century Cape Town penal colony.

One hundred and fifty-eight Canuck features were submitted to the fest this year, with 17 being selected for Perspective Canada. Thirteen are world premieres, while six are debut features. Debuts include: helmer Anita McGee’s The Bread Maker, the only feature from Atlantic Canada; Peter O’Brian’s long-in-the-works Toronto comedy Hollywood North; Nathaniel Geary’s gritty drama On the Corner, set in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; the Ontario doc Flyerman by Jeff Stephenson and Jason Tan; Jacob Tierney’s Twist, which sets Dickens’ Oliver Twist in modern Toronto; and Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, about porn and true love, from Toronto’s Sudz Sutherland.

Although Sutherland said he was ‘overjoyed to be here,’ he does not see TIFF as a guarantee of success.

‘If you promote something and you put some money in P&A and you release at the right time, success is for anybody out there to grab it,’ he said. He is hoping for a spring release of his movie through THINKFilm.

In addition to the provincial copro A Problem with Fear, Quebec is represented in Perspective Canada with 20H17, Rue Darling from Bernard Emond and Louis Belanger’s Gaz Bar Blues. There are four films from B.C.: The Corporation by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, Emile by Carl Bessai, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming and Totem by Gil Cardinal. Rounding out the list are Ontario’s Imitations of Life by Mike Hoolboom and the Ontario/

Saskatchewan copro Falling Angels from Scott Smith.

Renowned doc maker Allan King is featured in the Masters section for his latest, Dying at Grace, set in the Salvation Army Toronto Grace Health Centre. Meanwhile, Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World will play as a Special Presentation. A typically idiosyncratic offering from the filmmaker, Saddest Music is shot in black and white and tells the story of a competition to create the most morose music ever.

Maddin’s stock is on the rise following his award-winning Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary and the short The Heart of the World, which preemed at TIFF 2000. Being screened in the Special Presentation sidebar may garner more attention from foreign press and perhaps a major breakthrough.

‘It’s the best slot possible for the picture,’ Maddin said. ‘For a movie to be a breakout, it needs to be good, but also you need to be lucky – something has to be in the air internationally. The best you can do is put yourself in a position to be lucky.’

This year’s Open Vault blast from the past is a new print of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), the Mordecai Richler adaptation directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Richard Dreyfuss. Handling said the screening of the film would be timely, since it represents a model today’s filmmakers can use for box-office success – have a Canadian director tell a Canadian story with an international star.

TIFF 2003 will also feature a retrospective of the films of nearly forgotten Canadian female pioneer actor, writer and director Nell Shipman, whose early silent films include 1919’s Back to God’s Country.

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest