MONTREAL — Claude Chamberlan, the characteristically disheveled and giggly founder of Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, released the lineup for the event’s 36th edition this week, which includes 300 films from 40 countries, among them 17 world premieres.

With a big-name sponsor, Fido, on board and a hip young team of organizers at the ready, Chamberlan and festival director Nicolas Girard Deltruc maintain that Canada’s oldest international film festival is ‘refreshed’ and ready to both please audiences and tackle the future of cinema itself when it returns Oct. 10-21.

‘We have films for everyone. There are 133 feature-length films,’ Chamberlan said while cradling the festival’s mascot — a West Highland terrier named Merlin — at a press conference in downtown Montreal. ‘I have been to festivals around the world and made a number of amazing discoveries, from Estonia, Hungary, Israel and Quebec.’

Although FNC will open with Guillaume Sylvestre’s conventional documentary Durs à cuire, a culinary tale that follows two Montreal chefs, the slate also includes titles by enfants terribles of world cinema such as Chan-wook Park’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (South Korea), Taweewat Wantha’s Sperm (Thailand) and Cláudio Assis’ Bog of Beasts (Brazil).

While FNC remains committed to showing work by progressive and experimental filmmakers from around the world, it also wants to explore how the medium is changing, Deltruc told Playback Daily.

‘Where will film be in 10 years? We want to try to address this,’ he said. To this end, Deltruc’s team has programmed debates, lectures and new media installations exploring the future of film, including a dome in which visitors can explore the Canadian Film Centre/National Film Board interactive coproduction Late Fragment.

The Focus Québec/Canada program consists of 15 works from across Canada including: Peter Raymont’s A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, Bruce Sweeney’s American Venus, Carole Laure’s La capture, Up the Yangtzi by Yung Chang and Young People Fucking by Martin Gero.

Some established directors with new films at the festival are Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg), Peter Greenaway (the Canadian copro Nightwatching) and Bruce McDonald (The Tracey Fragments). Todd Haynes will also present his film about Bob Dylan, I’m Not There, which was shot in Montreal. Denys Arcand will also attend the festival with his latest pic, L’âge des ténèbres.

On Oct. 21, the festival will close with Cristian Mungiu’s Romanian entry 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which received the Palme d’Or award at Cannes.