Telefilm Canada’s executive director Wayne Clarkson says critics should not to compare watermelons to grapes when discussing box office sums of Hollywood versus Canadian films.

‘She traveled even less than George Bush,’ said Cate Blanchett, star of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, making a political comment in stark contrast to the philosophical tone dominating the news conference for the film, the second part of a planned trilogy begun with Elizabeth in 1998.

Charlize Theron was the first to read actor-turned-director and longtime beau Stuart Townsend’s script for the political drama Battle in Seattle, and says she was hooked right off the bat when the pages, still hot from the printer, were handed to her in their kitchen.

Toronto’s unofficial film market heated up Saturday with ThinkFilm and TVA Films combining to acquire the North American rights to Helen Hunt’s Then She Found Me for $2.5 million. The romantic comedy, Hunt’s directorial debut starring herself and Colin Firth, came to ThinkFilm by way of a first-look deal with Killer Films, the producer of Then She Found Me.

Roméo Dallaire greeted his admirers, signed autographs and posed for pictures on the red carpet this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, as he attended the world premiere of Shake Hands with the Devil.

It took retired Canadian Lt-General Roméo Dallaire seven years to write the book Shake Hands with the Devil, an account of the insurmountable odds he faced leading an ill-fated UN peacekeeping force into the dark heart of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. It also took nearly seven years for producers Michael Donovan and Laszlo Barna to bring Dallaire’s biopic to a world premiere at TIFF.

Brad Pitt says it felt good to be back in Alberta to shoot The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and had kind words for the picture’s Canadian crew.

Just hours before the world premiere of his Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg adopted the persona of a comedy night host, joking that red-hot Viggo Mortensen, leading man of his grim crime thriller, was not equipped for its bath house fight scene.

Michael Moore has had a special relationship with the Toronto International Film Festival, dating back to winning the People’s Choice Award for his breakthrough Roger & Me in 1989. So, it was only fitting that he would use Toronto as the launch pad for his latest, Captain Mike Across America, which preemed Friday night.

Opening night film Fugitive Pieces, a big-screen adaptation of the lyrical novel by Anne Michaels, appears to have been a labor of love by all who tackled the less-than-uplifting material that begins in the depths of the Holocaust and extends to the 1970s in examining the long term after-effects of such trauma.

Stars including Gorgeous George and Brad Pitt arriving on the red carpet in handpicked Audis, looking to boost next month’s rollout of its first-ever mid-engine sports car. Penn, Foster, Caine also in on the deal