HALIFAX — The 28th Atlantic Film Festival launched to much pageantry here Thursday night.

The NBC Universal Canada Opening Gala film was Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness, a Brazil/Canada/Japan copro adapted by Don McKellar from the José Saramago novel. Blindness producer Niv Fichman and McKellar appeared at the screening at the venerated Oxford Theatre, and walked the red carpet later at the downtown opening-night party on Argyle Street outside film biz hot spot The Economy Shoe Shop.

McKellar indicated that the director had tweaked the film further since it screened at TIFF — following changes that were made after it opened Cannes.

‘There were some changes that Fernando wanted to make,’ McKellar said. ‘So this version, I think, is the final version. I’m pretty sure. This is definitely his preferred version.’

He suspects that Meirelles cast him in a supporting role in order to have the writer on set.

‘The first couple of days I had to make it clear to people that I wasn’t there to supervise,’ McKellar recalled. ‘But it was this amazing privilege as a writer. In Hollywood, the writer is ditched right at the beginning. It’s sort of a luxury to be wanted.’

McKellar has visited the AFF in the past, but never on opening night. ‘It’s an honor,’ he said. ‘It seems to me it used to be in a bar before.’

Festival director Lia Rinaldo was still confirming screening guests right up to the launch. She’d just heard that writer/director Randall Cole will appear to introduce his drama Real Time on Friday, Sept. 19, and Noam Jenkins and Katie Boland, cast members from Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, will be at the screening of that film this Saturday. ‘Everything happens at the very last minute,’ Rinaldo said.

Rosanna Arquette made an appearance on the red carpet on the arm of her director Michael Melski, whose coming-of-age/pot comedy Growing Op is the Atlantic Gala presentation on Friday night.

Also expected later in the festival are award-winning songwriter Dennis Lambert and his director son Jody Lambert. Jody’s film Of All the Things follows his father as he discovers a huge fan base on a tour of the Philippines 35 years after the release of his only solo album. Dennis will also be performing at The Carleton the evening of the screening.

The AFF runs until Sept. 20.