Call it evolution, a snub to Canadian film, or just clever programming as the Toronto International Film Festival picks the British-made Charles Darwin biopic Creation to open its 34th installment on Sept. 10.

Fest co-director Cameron Bailey said there was no ‘hard and fast rule’ that TIFF open with a Canadian film. The festival opened in 1993 with David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, and with another American-financed picture, Fly Away Home, in 1996. Bailey insisted Jon Amiel’s Darwin romancer, which stars husband-and-wife actors Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, this year best fitted the demands of a festival opener on an emotional and intellectual level.

Creation portrays Darwin’s struggle between science and God as he refines his theory of evolution just as he and his wife come to terms with their young daughter’s death.

Festival co-director Piers Handling said choosing Creation over a homegrown picture did not signal Canadian film had returned to a TIFF ghetto. ‘Our commitment to Canadian film remains unshaken,’ Handling said, before indicating a full lineup of Canadian films equal in number to prior years would be unveiled at a later date (Aug. 4).

Kicking off TIFF with a British film also comes as Toronto faces stepped-up pressure from rival festivals like Venice and Telluride to provide Hollywood and major global movie producers with a launch pad for the fall awards season leading up to the Oscars.

Ted East, president of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters, representing indie distributors, said choosing a foreign title as an opener was not problematic as long as TIFF did not shift policy and repeat the practice in future years.

Canadian directors and distributors are also understood this year to have passed on the opening-night slot – long considered notoriously difficult as a crowd-pleaser – to focus instead on succeeding nights as launch pads for future theatrical releases.

Canadian films in the running this year for Roy Thomson Hall slots include the Belgian/Canadian sci-fi Mr. Nobody, directed by Jaco Van Dormael and starring Sarah Polley and Jared Leto; and Dilip Mehta’s What’s Cooking, Stella?, a comedy coproduced and co-written by sibling Deepa Mehta.

TIFF’s opening press conference was preceded by a new revenue-sharing agreement between Canadian distributors and TIFF to cover the travel and talent costs associated with marketing non-studio film titles at the festival. East said TIFF in recent years has raked in increased box office receipts and sponsorship funds, while not doing enough to cover escalating costs borne by Canadian distributors to bring titles to the festival.

Canadian indie distributors each year bring around 75 films to TIFF, many foreign-language and U.S. indie films with an American distributor attached. In many cases, the U.S. distributor expects the Canadian distribution partner to cover the talent costs, while TIFF pulls in revenue from a film’s three screenings at the festival.

The festival is set to run Sept. 10-19.