For its first 20 years the Montreal World Film Festival (Aug. 22 to Sept. 2) has been dedicated to telling the full story of international cinemas, sold and unsold, and with 318 films from 60 countries on the program, the 1996 edition is an inspired reaffirmation of its lofty original mission.

This year’s program includes 21 films in competition, special spotlights on Latin American and Russian moviemaking, 18 features in an expanded Panorama Canada section, a 10-film ‘Under the Stars’ outdoor screening program, as well as tributes to American actors Anthony Quinn and Nicholas Cage and Quebec film documentarian Arthur Lamothe.

The 20th edition is dedicated to the memory of Harold Greenberg, founder of Astral Communications.

Grand Prix des Ameriques

Canadian entries in competition for this year’s wff top prize – Grand Prix des Ameriques – are Gilles Carle’s Pudding Chomeur, a tale of street-wise characters, dreamers, crooked cops and transvestites (Astral Films), and British actor Philip Goodhew’s feature debut Intimate Relations, a u.k./Canada coproduction set in a small English village circa 1954 (CFP Distribution).

The only competitive class a festival in the Americas, wff president Serge Losique and vp Daniele Cauchard have announced a diverse lineup of 21 films for competition, including the opening night film, Edward Burns’ She’s the One (Fox).

Other films in competition are: Keith Gordon’s Kurt Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night, filmed in Montreal last year (Alliance Releasing); u.s. director Alexander Payne’s feature debut Citizen Ruth (Alliance/Miramax); Lina Wertmuller’s coming-of-age period story The Nymph; Russian director Sergei Gazarov’s The Inspector General; Jan Troell’s Hamsun, a chronicle of a Noble Prize-winning Norwegian writer’s support of the Nazis; Chinese director Wang Xinsheng’s Peach Blossom; Vijay Singh’s romantic journey down the Ganges, Jaya Ganga, an India/France/u.s. coproduction; and Cesar nominee, Olivier Schatzky’s Henry James-inspired adaptation The Pupil (L’Eleve) (Alliance).

Moreau heads Jury

French movie star Jeanne Moreau is the president of the wff’s official competition jury this year.

Moreau (La Notte, Jules and Jim) is joined by Canadian producer Denis Heroux (Atlantic City, The French Revolution), Italian author, film critic and former Venice Film Festival director Guglielmo Biraghi, Hungarian filmmaker Judit Elek (The Lady from Constantinople), Spanish actress Assumpta Serna (Sweet Hours, Wild Orchid), Cuban director Humberto Solas (El Siglo de Las Luces) and American author and Los Angeles Times and Monitor Radio film critic Kenneth Turan.

Confirmed festival guests (at press time) include Edward Burns, Laura Dern (Citizen Ruth), Max von Sydow (Hamsun), Nick Nolte (Mother Night), Nikita Mikhalkov (The Inspector General), Jacques Perrin (Le Silence des Fusils), and European directors Chantale Akerman, Cedric Klapisch, Jacques Audiard and Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.

This year’s dedicated national spotlight is on Russian cinema. The wff is also offering a retrospective tribute of the best 20 Quebec films of the past 20 years.

The tribute to Quinn (Viva Zapata, La Strada, Zorba the Greek) coincides with the screening of his latest film, Seven Servants.

Panorama Canada

Panorama Canada has 18 features, with 124 Canadian and Quebec productions on the full program.

Promising fare includes Cynthia Roberts’ Bubbles Galore, a story of a filmmaking porn star, and Toronto director Nicholas Campbell’s Boozecan, a tale set in an illegal, after-hours drinking hole. Neither has acquired Canadian distribution, according to festival sources.

Also on tap: Jean and Serge Gagne’s portrait of poet Gaston Miron, La Marche a l’amour (Cinema Libre); Jean Chabot’s murder-minded documentary Sans raison apparente (nfb); Renee Blanchar’s generational survey of women, Vocation menagere (nfb); Len Scher’s timely investigation of the blacklisting of Canadians during the Cold War, The Un-Canadians, an nfb Ontario/ Joanne Smale coproduction; and director Ann Kennard’s fascinating international study Powder Room, a documentary about ‘women who escape men and children (nfb).’

Commercial releases

Canadian dramatic feature fare with commercial distribution in the wff ’96 lineup includes Toronto playwright Romy Goulem’s film debut The Drive, a riveting, Saturday-night-gone-wrong story (Industry Entertainment); Srinivas Krishna’s mail-order chronicle of the unbuyable Lulu (Alliance); and John Fawcett’s coming-of-age feature debut The Boys Club (Alliance).

Other entries include Giles Walker’s touching human drama Never Too Late (Allegro Films Distribution); director David Winning’s police psychiatrist’s investigation of sex slayings, Profile for Murder (cfp); and John Greyson’s haunting suspense tale of love and revenge, Lilies, a Quebec/Ontario coproduction based on the hit Michel Marc Bouchard stage play Les Fleurettes (Alliance).

Also on the program: Nik Sheehan’s Symposium (Cell Productions), Jay Ferguson’s feature debut Suburban Legend (Second Stage Productions), Dorothy Todd Henaut’s touching account of the very, very old, You Won’t Need Running Shoes, Darling and Ginette Pellerin’s Evangeline en quete, based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow heroine.

Best Canadian film in the wff wins the newly launched $25,000 Telefilm Canada Award.

Hors Concours

This high-profile festival section has 44 movies from around the world, mostly from established filmmakers with commercial distribution.

The three Canadian Hors Concours entries are wff ’96 Tribute director Arthur Lamothe’s Silencing the Guns, a human drama and murder investigation set in the Far North (Distribution La Fete); Jacques Godbout’s ‘new twist on the Battle of the Plains of Abraham,’ Le Sort de l’Amerique (nfb); and Bernar Hebert’s latest, The Night of the Flood (Antenna).

The festival’s closing night (Sept. 2) film is the Italy/France coproduction Elective Affinities, directed by legendary Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.

Selected films with Canadian distribution include Edouard Molinaro’s Beaumarchais l’insolent (Alliance), George Sluizer’s European coproduction Crimetime (Malofilm), wonderful ex-circus director Bartabas’ second feature Chamane (Prima Film), and French director Bernard Giraudeau’s 18th century period piece Les Caprices d’un fleuve (France Film).

Other films with Canadian distribution are: French New Wave director Eric Rohmer’s Conte d’ete (Prima); Jacques Audiard’s Un Heros tres discret (Alliance); the French biological/insect exploration Microcosmos (cfp); two Australian films, Paul Cox’s Lust and Revenge and Richard Franklin’s brilliant Lies (Cineplex Odeon Films); and popular Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner’s latest feature film, Fourbi (Film Tonic).

Cinema of Today & Tomorrow

Films acquired for Canadian, and in certain cases international, distribution in the Cinema of Today and Tomorrow sections include Fiddlefest from producer/director Allan Miller, founder of The Late Late Concerts series at the Lincoln Center (Films Transit); u.s. director Alan Taylor’s Palookaville (Malofilm); and u.k. director Hettie MacDonald’s Beautiful Thing, based on the Jonathan Harvey stage play (Alliance).

Also on tap are u.s. director Peter Kiwitt’s Silent Lies (Image Organization), the Canada/New Zealand coproduction The Whole of the Moon (cfp), and Emmy Award winner Todd Robinson’s documentary Wild Bill – Hollywood Maverick (Films Transit).

Other titles include Hungarian filmmaker Judit Elek’s To Speak the Unspeakable – The Message of Elie Wiesel, narrated in English by actor William Hurt (Films Transit); French director Cedric Klapisch’s Chacun Cherche son Chat (Malofilm); Dutch director Robert Jan Westkijk’s feature debut Little Sister (Aska Film Distribution); the Israeli film Saint Clara, cowritten and directed by Ori Sivan and Ari Fulman and based on the novel Clara Hakadusha (Aska); and Algerian director Merzak Allouache’s Salut Cousin! (Prima).

Canadian Student Film Festival

More than 50 films are competing for the National Film Board’s prestigious Norman McLaren Award, presented to the best film at the 27th Canadian Student Film Festival, Aug. 24-28.

This year’s wff main corporate sponsors are Air Canada and Rothmans Film International.