‘Edgy’ is the cornucopia of films from ‘virtually every country in the world’ at the 32nd annual Toronto International Film Festival, according to Piers Handling.

It’s an ’embarrassment of riches,’ says the TIFF Group director and CEO about the quality of this year’s films.

Toronto’s global movie connoisseur is also quick to add that current world events are prominent everywhere.

‘There is a huge number of films dealing directly with the war in Iraq, or the fallout from the war, or from 9/11,’ Handling observes, pointing to directors like the U.K.’s Nick Broomfield, who brings the new documentary Battle for Haditha (an investigation of the alleged massacre of 24 men, women and children by four U.S. Marines) and Brian DePalma, who screens Redacted (about media and U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq conflict).

Handling notes there are similar war stories from Belgium (Florent Siri’s L’ennemi intime), Turkey (Alan Ball’s Nothing Is Private), France (Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit) and Iran (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis, winner of the ’07 Cannes Jury Prize).

Vigilantism is another prominent theme this edition. Helmer Neil Jordan is back with Jodie Foster starring in The Brave One, about a New York woman who takes justice into her own hands to avenge her husband after a near-fatal beating. Foster is expected to attend the screening.

Star power, Handling says, ‘will be huge.’

Mega-stars expected to grace Toronto’s red carpets include Brad Pitt (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), George Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age).

Susan Sarandon will be in town with two films: Emotional Arithmetic (see story, p. 15) and In the Valley of Elah, directed by Canada’s own Oscar-winning writer/director Paul Haggis. Elah thesp Tommy Lee Jones (also in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men) is on the list, as is another Elah costar, Charlize Theron, who’s also in Battle in Seattle with Woody Harrelson.

Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell are expected at TIFF to promote Cassandra’s Dream, along with director Woody Allen, who would be attending the festival for the first time.