The 27th Toronto International Film Festival unspools Sept. 5-14 with a contingent of highly anticipated Canadian films, new screening programs, a return of red carpet glamour and remembrances of 9/11, which ground last year’s events to a halt.

The festival opens with the North American premiere of Atom Egoyan’s Ararat, the Oscar-nominated director’s highly personal work about a filmmaker wrestling with the subject of the Armenian Genocide. David Cronenberg’s psychological thriller Spider, starring Ralph Fiennes, is also slated for Gala treatment. Meanwhile, Bollywood/Hollywood, Toronto director Deepa Mehta’s first foray into comedy, leads off the 20 features and 29 short films in the 19th Perspective Canada series.

Films produced or coproduced in Canada that are screening at TIFF in other programs include: Between Strangers (an Italy/Canada copro distributed by Equinox Films), which sees Edoardo Ponti directing his mother, Sophia Loren; Max, (Alliance Atlantis/H2O/Pathe), which stars John Cusack and Molly Parker in a tale of Adolph Hitler’s youthful days as a painter; the family feature Touching Wild Horses (C/P Productions/Apollo Media/Grosvenor Park); Montreal World Film Festival opener La Turbulence des fluides (Max Films); Julie Walking Home (imX communications/The Film Works/ART OKO Film/Studio Filmowe) by acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Holland; and Royal Bonbon (Les Films de L’Isle/Les Films du Requin), set in the picturesque Haitian mountains.

The final tally of Canadian films at TIFF 2002, including coproductions, is 42 features, 18 of which are making world premieres, and 39 shorts. TIFF’s 264 confirmed features and 80 shorts, spread out over 16 programs, are being presented on 20 screens in Festival Village, a cluster of theatres in Toronto’s downtown core. During the festival, TIFF offices are relocating to the Four Seasons Hotel and The Sutton Place Hotel Toronto.

New to the festival this year is the Visions program, which focuses on films that, according to TIFF organizers, ‘use unconventional approaches to storytelling or employ new technologies in distinctive ways.’ Independent Film Channel Canada, owned by Alliance Atlantis, is presenting the $20,000 Independent Film Channel Visions Award to one of the program’s selected filmmakers, as voted by jury. Citytv’s $25,000 Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature, the $15,000 Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature and a $10,000 Award for Best Canadian Short Film are also being presented at the Annual Awards Brunch on Sept. 15.

In addition to the marathon film viewing and all the business deals, TIFF has traditionally also been very much about networking over cocktails and canapes. The Opening Night Party follows Ararat’s Sept. 5 screening and the next night sees The Festival Schmooze for Perspective Canada at the CHUMCity Building. The Closing Night Party follows the North American premier of Femme Fatale, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Antonio Banderas and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.

Star talent expected on hand this year, after last year’s red carpet entrances were curtailed, includes Loren, Michelle Pfeiffer, Denzel Washington, Adam Sandler, Dustin Hoffman, Pierce Brosnan, Ralph Fiennes, Sigourney Weaver, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson and John Cusack.

To commemorate the one-year anniversary of 9/11, TIFF 2002 is going dark on Sept. 11 until 11 a.m., and organizers have also arranged to make counseling available to staff and guests. That evening will see two special Gala presentations, beginning with The Guys, directed by Jim Simpson and starring Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia. The film tells the story of a writer who helps a New York fire captain compose the eulogies for eight men he lost in the World Trade Center towers’ collapse. Following is 11’09’01, a compilation film that assembles shorts on a 9/11 theme directed by such notables as Ken Loach, Shohei Imamura and Sean Penn.

TIFF’s website, www.e.bell.ca/filmfest, supplies schedule info, e-mail alerts for late-breaking TIFF news, live coverage, and Festival Insights, a new feature that provides commentary from TIFF director Piers Handling and his programming staff.