Film telluride festival in religulous release

Deal was done via subsidiary Granada9/30/08 3:27pm Event to be held
April 7-8 in Paris9/30/08 1:54pm “Blind Pig” enters Tiger Awards
race9/30/08 6:45am ‘Changeling,’ ‘Palermo Shooting’ on slate9/29/08
11:34am ‘Assembly, ‘Atonement’ take home top awards9/28/08 11:27pm

TORONTO — Cannes and Sundance are cinephile fests, and Telluride
courts the arty. But the Toronto Film Festival offers something few
other major festivals can boast: real audiences by which to gauge a
film.
That makes Toronto the friendliest of the friendly festivals, both for
buyers and for distributors launching their fall titles.

Heading into this year’s fest, the mood was grim. The specialty box
office has been abysmal since awards season, while the acquisitions
market has been flat.

By Sunday afternoon, however, spirits were actually high — all
because of strong audience reaction to a handful of titles. Some, like
“Slumdog Millionaire” and “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” have
distribution. Others, like Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” and
Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy “Management,” don’t, but that didn’t
stop auds from salivating.

“I think everybody thought Toronto would be off and depressing because
of the general state of indie films,” Picturehouse’s Bob Berney said.
“But I think it is looking really good. I don’t know if there will be
a lot of sales, but the quality of the films looks good, even though
some are very small.”

Deal-wise, the pace has been glacial, with all eyes on Sunday night’s
screening for buyers of “The Wrestler,” the Mickey Rourke comebacker
that just took the Golden Lion in Venice. “Management,” the Sidney
Kimmel romantic comedy with Aniston and Steve Zahn, was also set to
screen Sunday night.

CAA’s Micah Green, who is spearheading sales on “The Wrestler,” did
not screen the title for anyone after its hit run in Venice.
Negotiations with buyers are likely to center on how would-be distribs
would roll it out in Oscar season.

The concept of using Toronto as a springboard into the fall still has
a lot of validity, judging by Focus’ glitzy bow for “Burn After
Reading,” whose gala screening took over the town Friday. As it did
with last year’s “Eastern Promises,” Focus is using the first weekend
of Toronto, especially with this year’s Brad Pitt frenzy, as the
ultimate publicity fuel for a bow the following Friday.

Of course, positive audience reaction doesn’t always translate into
B.O. gold. Fest veterans like to joke that Canadian auds are too
polite to boo. “You could show them your high school movie and they’d
still love it,” one studio exec said.

Even grading on a curve, though, the resonance of the weekend’s preems
proved a tonic for the biz at large. On Saturday night, the Ryerson
theater was packed for a screening of Sony’s Michael Cera-Kat Dennings
comedy “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” directed by Peter Sollett
and opening Oct. 3.

Big Sony doesn’t generally use Toronto as a launching pad, but in this
case, it decided to do so precisely because of the audience factor.
Plus, Cera is Canadian.

After the screening, the audience departed from convention and stayed
put for a Q&A; with the director and cast.

Lionsgate’s Bill Maher upcoming docu “Religulous” got a standing
ovation later Saturday. Outside, a small group of protestors picketed
the movie, directed by Larry Charles, who himself decided to speak
with those carrying picket signs decrying the movie as an attack on
religious beliefs. That kind of publicity generally only helps a
studio raise a film’s awareness level.

Among acquisition titles, several docs all had noteworthy debuts and
generated deal talk. That short list included LeBron James basketball
doc “More Than a Game”; “Chorus Line” backstager “Every Little Step,”
late-’60s music pic “Soul Power” and Davis Guggenheim’s star-studded
guitar story “It Could Get Loud.”

Celluloid Dreams bought all international rights to “Soul Power,”
about the landmark concert that preceded the Ali-Foreman fight in
Africa.

A handful of narrative pics like “Me and Orson Welles,” “Lovely,
Still,” “Dean Spanley” and “Daily Show” brainchild “Coopers’ Camera,”
won some admirers, but gun-shy buyers expressed some reservations.

One factor giving buyers pause was the sense that 2008, with all of
its turmoil and economic uncertainty, could go down as the year when
distribution models began their much-ballyhooed shift.

Filmmaker Wayne Wang met those forces of change head-on by announcing
an intriguing experiment with “The Princess of Nebraska.” It will
world-preem exclusively on YouTube Oct. 17 and will not receive a
theatrical release. Wang’s companion film, “A Thousand Years of Good
Prayers,” is scheduled for a theatrical release Sept. 19 by Magnolia.

Another model-disrupting setup came from Participant Films and
publisher PublicAffairs. They announced a deal whereby the publisher
will turn out books based on Participant’s films. The first in line
for the treatment is doc “Food Inc.,” the food industry expose which
had its world preem here Sunday and will be expanded into a paperback
original.

Edward Norton and Tim Blake Nelson also tackled marketplace issues
during a press conference Sunday with Nu Image/Millennium boss Avi
Lerner to tout their new pic, “Leaves of Grass.” A comedy spiked with
genre elements, the $9 million pic seems to risk falling into the zone
that has produced the most headaches lately.

“It’s trickier than it used to be,” Norton said, who also stars in
“Pride and Glory.” That upcoming New Line release was affected by Time
Warner’s shutdown of New Line but will still be released this fall as
a Warners pic.

“It feels so in flux,” Nelson agreed. “Now these companies have to
ask, ‘Is it DVD? Is it VOD?’ It’s certainly beyond me, and I really
study these things.”

Another in-the-works project being talked up during the fest is
Toronto-based helmer Brigitte Berman’s Hugh Hefner doc. The Oscar
winner (for a 1985 Arte Shaw pic) just wrapped shooting and expects to
have a cut ready by April. Canada’s Aver Media is handling sales.

“It’s not a biography that deals with babes and boobs,” Berman said.
Rather, it will revolve around his little-recognized social activism
in arenas such as First Amendment and abortion rights.

Amid all of Toronto 2008’s unexpected angles and the uncertainty
looming outside the fest gates, it was reassuring to know that some
sights were all too familiar. Gifting lounges are growing
exponentially here. Many of the suites are run by regulars at
Sundance, but now prefer the ease and talent concentration of Toronto.

“We want coverage in a cluttered environment,” said one organizer, who
had a laundry list of directors and stars that have hauled out sacks
of goods.

Unlike Sundance, the lounges are located in or near the hotels where
talent sleeps, so it’s easy to avoid the potentially embarrassing
paparazzi picture. Many of the A-listers here have their suite already
lined with gifts, including hundreds of dollars in gift certificates
to local merchants.

The products are all over the map. While Anne Hathaway picked out
threads from French Connection, Zac Efron got ACE “man-sized” grooming
tools (37% more grip!). In a convoluted twist, celebs at some lounges
have the option to re-gift their swag to charity as they leave.

Buyers packed into Toronto’s Elgin Theatre for the North American
premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” which arrived at the
Fest with a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival. Aronofsky tried
to cool the crowd down, saying, “There’s no way we’re going to live up
to that hype. It’s a gentle, small film.” French sales company Wild
Bunch believed in the film, he said, and if any North American buyer
“is interested, I have a phone number for you afterward.”

That number belongs to CAA’s Micah Green, who will be taking calls
through the night as buyers decide how much they are willing to commit
to a 2008 late year release with a pricey Rourke Oscar campaign
attached.

Paramount’s John Lesher, New Line’s Toby Emmerich, Harvey Weinstein,
Fox Searchlight, Focus Features, Overture, Miramax, Sony Pictures
Classics, Summit, IFC and others were huddling afterwards. The likely
buyer will be taking a risk on a movie that could win over critics and
Academy actors but would be a challenge to bring to market, observers
agreed.

‘Che’ gets second act at NY Film Fest The makers of “Che” are hoping
the New York Film Festival will provide a fresh opportunity for an
iconic Argentine revolutionary to find new life on American shores.

Bumpy road for Asian film financing Asian film financing is in a
fog. For all its recent marching around, it is difficult to tell
whether it is moving forwards, backwards or simply around in circles.

Sitges fest boosted by rise in genre biz In its 41st edition,
Europe’s largest genre movie event, the Sitges Intl. Film Festival,
shows no signs of age.

An intriguing docu about the intense history of a working-class barrio
in the south of Madrid, “Night Flowers” is a fine study of both a
particular community and the wider history of which it’s a part.

“Flash of Genius” stars Greg Kinnear and Lauren Graham sit down with
Variety at the Telluride Film Festival. ; Director Paul Schrader and
“Adam Resurrected” star Jeff Goldblum chat with Anne Thompson in
Telluride. ; Anne Thompson sits down with “Slumdog Millionaire”
director Danny Boyle at the Telluride Film Festival. ; A view from the
scenic Rocky Mountains in Telluride, Colorado. ; “Happy Go Lucky”
director Mike Leigh speaks to Anne Thompson at the Telluride Film
Festival. ; happy go lucky; telluride film festival; interview; Mike
Leigh; variety; Sony execs Tom Bernard and Michael Barker talk to
Variety at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival. ; sony; michael barker;
telluride film festival; video; variety; tom bernard; “Firaaq”
director and renown Indian actress Nandita Das talks to Mike Jones at
the Telluride Film Festival. ; Salman Rushdie; Firaaq director Nandita
Das; interview; actress; video; variety; ‘Walt With Bashir’ director
Ari Folman sits down with Mike Jones at the Telluride Film Festival. ;
‘Waltz With Bashir’ director Ari Folman; video; variety; Producer Ron
Colby and “Pirate for the Sea” star Paul Watson talk to Variety about
their new anti-whaling documentary. ; Anne Thompson meets some fellow
Telluride enthusiasts in Colorado. ; Anne Thompson; telluride 2008
film festival; variety; ‘Hunger’ director Steve McQueen talks to
Variety at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival.; telluride film festival;
hunger director Steve Mcqueen; video; variety; Director David Fincher
speaks at an outdoor Q&A; at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival in
Colorado. ; panel; zodiac; telluride film festival 2008 david fincher;
Brad Pitt; Benjamin Button; variety;

The religulous movie film toronto festival

(CNN) — A mere film festival cannot compete with the Academy Awards’
grip on the public imagination, but the 33rd Toronto International
Film Festival (which begins Thursday) comes pretty close — in part
because it has become the first important bellwether for the onslaught
of Oscar hopefuls.

Spike Lee’s World War II drama, “Miracle of St. Anna,” is one of the
hot tickets at the film festival.

Last year’s bumper crop of contenders included “Into the Wild,” “In
the Valley of Elah,” “Atonement,” “I’m Not There,” “The Assassination
of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and the eventual best
picture winner, “No Country For Old Men.” After 10 days in Toronto, it
was obvious that 2007 would go down as an exceptionally strong year
for American film.

According to pre-festival buzz, 2008 will struggle to match it. The
studio specialty divisions that produced many of last year’s quality
pictures — including Paramount Vantage, which co-produced “No Country
For Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” — have been cut back or
eliminated entirely, incorporated into their corporate parents.

And American movies mostly have been absent from this month’s Venice
and Telluride film festivals amid whispers that Hollywood’s
submissions just weren’t up to grade.

For better or (frequently) worse, the prefers to operate a more open-
door policy with the studios, which at least guarantees glamour-
starved Canadians a steady stream of celebrities trotting down the red
carpet. More than 500 are expected this year, including Brad Pitt,
Jennifer Aniston, Dakota Fanning, Jeanne Moreau, Ricky Gervais and
Charlize Theron. (Pitt and Aniston will not be together.)

Hot tickets — and at nearly $40 for gala screenings, they better be
— include the Coen brothers’ latest, “Burn After Reading,” which also
screened in Venice; Spike Lee’s World War II drama, “Miracle of St.
Anna”; and new films from Jonathan Demme, Darren Aronofsky and Richard
Linklater.

Toronto also will provide North Americans their first chance to see
many of the most talked-about films from May’s Cannes International
Film Festival, including Steven Soderbergh’s two-part epic “Che,”
brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s “Silence de Lorna” and Terence
Davies’ highly praised “Of Time and the City.”

With a lineup of 249 features from 64 countries, there can be no
shortage of potential, and talk is enthusiastic about a number of
films.

“Borat” director Larry Charles is back with a satirical documentary
fronted by Bill Maher, “Religulous,” which threatens — or promises —
to put a cat among the doves.

There are hopes Ed Harris can pull off a grand Western in the old
style with his film of the Robert Parker novel “Appaloosa.” A cast
headed by Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger and Harris
himself certainly makes the prospect appetizing.

Last year’s spate of Iraq-themed pictures failed to ignite the box
office, but Kathryn Bigelow’s bomb-disposal thriller, “The Hurt
Locker” (with Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce), could be
the first to buck the trend. According to Toronto Eye critic Jason
Anderson, this one has “real breakout potential.”

Meanwhile, Telluride reviews for Danny Boyle’s true-life fairy tale,
“Slumdog Millionaire,” have been little short of ecstatic. Can a movie
really be both “Dickensian” and “a blast,” as Variety proclaims?

Religulous movie’s film don’t people

Sunday capped a typically busy first weekend at the Toronto
International Film Festival. While audiences and industry anticipated
the North American premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,”
other films in the spotlight included Nik Fackler’s “Lovely, Still”,
Deepa Mehta’s “Heaven on Earth,” Larry Charles and Bill Maher’s
“Religulous,” and Steve McQueen’s “The Hunger.”

Producers Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy are clearly on a roll. Named to
Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch list last week, the duo (producers of
“Wild Tigers I Have Known” and “Old Joy”) are expected to imminently
announce an overhead deal with mentor Scott Rudin early this week. In
the meantime, they’ve been quite busy working the scene here at the
Toronto International Film Festival. On Sunday, Knudsen and Van Hoy
shuttled from a noon-time press & industry screening of Nik Fackler’s
“Lovely, Still,” popped over to a showing of So Yung Kim’s “Treeless
Mountain” and then back to an afternoon tea reception for “Lovely,
Still.”

Outside Sunday’s “Lovely, Still” showing, reps Cassian Elwes (from
William Morris) and Cynthia Swartz (from 42 West) worked an end of
hallway after the screening, while Knudsen and Van Hoy greeted well-
wishers. Fackler’s first feature had just stirred an emotional
response among a number of those who connected with his story of an
aging romance, starring Martin Laundau and Ellen Burstyn. The small
town story walks a tightrope and then takes a dramatic turn at its
climax, leaving viewers both heartbroken and uplifted.

“If the actors were my age, it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Fackler told
indieWIRE, when asked whether people are focusing too much on the fact
that, at age 17, he wrote the story of these two older lovers. Now 24,
he seems to take the questions in stride. William Morris’s Craig
Kestel, rep to such filmmakers as Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, Ryan
Eslinger and The Duplass Brothers, found then music video director and
artist Fackler’s website. He later packaged the film, concealing the
would-be filmmaker’s age until after the connected with the script.
They would eventually work with Jack Turner and White Buffalo
Entertainment to get the movie made and on the fest circuit within a
year.

Ellen Burstyn reiterated a particular fondness for filmmakers at an
early stage of their careers. She worked with Martin Scorsese, Peter
Bogdanovich and Darren Aronofsky early on. Explaining to indieWIRE
that she relishes the chance to work with a director before they’ve
been through the “meat-grinder” she noted that emerging filmmakers are
less likely to second guess themselves when they have less to prove
and have not yet faced too much failure (or success).

Buzz is growing for Fackler’s feature, but those involved are still
mapping out the best release strategy for the picture. The team is
taking the temperature of buyers, while balancing a hope to get the
movie — set during the Christmas holiday — out at the end of the
year to make the most of post-fest (and awards) buzz. If they decide
not to sell the movie, don’t be surprised if they take a high-profile
DIY approach. In last week’s biz assessment ahead of TIFF, indieWIRE’s
noted that marketing consultant Matthew Cohen is already on board to
help with distribution.

“We have plans in place,” producer Lars Knudsen told indieWIRE last
week. “If we don’t get the offers we want or anticipate, it doesn’t
end there. There’s been the sense: If you don’t get your film acquired
at a festival, what do you do? Now people are waking up and saying:
We, as producers and filmmakers, need to do that research and
understand the marketplace better.” [Eugene Hernandez]

Domestic violence takes the spotlight in Indian director Deepa Mehta’s
“Heaven on Earth.” Starring Bollywood actress Preity Zinta and actor
Vansh Bhardwaj, the film opens with colorful festivities celebrating
the wedding of Chand (Zinta) and Rocky (Bhardwaj) but fades when the
bride is taken to her new home in Canada and the reality of a violent
home life takes root.

“I discovered most people don’t want to talk about domestic violence
because they feel they deserve it or are embarrassed,” said Mehta
about her latest film. She also learned that after filming the project
many of her friends were also victims of spousal abuse. “Unles we
start talking about it, nothing is going to change. It’s a universal
issue, domestic violence knows no caste, race or [borders].”

Zinta was sanguine when asked if she thought the film would be able to
find an audience in her homeland – a country internationally known
more for producing over the top musicals then hot-button issue-
oriented work. “Indian audiences have matured. People who are
‘confident’ will get the film. Of course there are still the escapist
musicals that are just fun and you can just leave your brains at
home… they’re my bread-and-butter. But these [non-Bollywood] films
do have an audience…” [Brian Brooks]

Director Larry Charles and comedian Bill Maher at the Toronto press
conference for their film, “Religulous.” Photo by Brian
Brooks/indieWIRE.

“Borat” director Larry Charles and comedian Bill Maher take on the
final sacred cow by tapping their irreverance to stroke the slippery
slope of skepticism when it comes to the God issue in their film,
“Religulous.” Maher travels to some of the holiest sights in the world
for some of the biggest names in monotheism: Jerusalem, Vatican City
and Salt Lake City to openly polarize and debunk what Maher sees as
the ridiculousness of religion.

“I say I’m a ‘rationalist.’ I don’t like the word ‘atheist.’ It’s too
dogmatic. I don’t say there’s no God, I don’t [ultimately] know… A
‘rationalist’ is someone who bases their thinking on rational thought
based on scientific evidence,” said Maher Sunday afternoon in Toronto
about his personal view on faith. “We’ve become the Woodward and
Bernstein of religion,” joked Charles. “We want to destroy the whole
system…”

Maher, who apparently was picketed the night before at the debut of
his doc the night before, went for the jugular when asked by a
Canadian journalist why American political candidates wear their
religion on their sleeves more then in other countries. “Because we’re
a dumber country then you are,” he quipped. “People argue that if you
get rid of religion, society will implode, but we see Western Europe
has moved away from religion and despite that, we haven’t seen a
collapse, in fact they’re quite well off…”

Maher quickly dispelled any notion that he had a difficult religious
upbringing and was using bitterness as a tool to attack religion,
saying his Catholic childhood was void of any personal trauma. “People
ask me if I’m doing this because I’m bitter since I was raised
Catholic, and the answer is ‘no!’ I wasn’t abused as a child or
anything like that, and quite frankly – I’m insulted…” [Brian
Brooks]

“This film is all about taste, texture, and smell and sound,” said
artist and first-time filmmaker Steve McQueen at the Q&A; following
the Toronto screening of his fantastically visceral work, “The
Hunger.” In McQueen’s riveting, disturbing film, we see the final
weeks of Bobby Sands, an IRA reactionary who lead a protest in the
notoriously brutal Maze Prison during the heated Irish conflict in
1981. Atypically though, the film offers an unbiased view of the
disturbing conflict, showing with striking imagery the prisoners as
well as the guards and the brutality that they all witness. Commenting
on how his film compared to others that have documented this part of
Irish history, McQueen said, ” “I don’t think about what other people
have done before.” He added, It’s about communicating ideas with
images…You always have to put two things in a frame.”

Actor Michael Fassbender, who captures the tragic story of Bobby
Sands, lost 35 lbs to offer the disturbing sight of a man slowly dying
of self-inflicted starvation. When asked about working with
Fassbender, McQueen said, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s on the
screen.” McQueen offered a bit more, saying that “A look or one or two
words and we were on the same page.” When one audience member asked
how he lost the weight, Fassbender quipped, “”You looking for some
tips? Stand up, let’s take a look at you.” Fassbender added, “I had
ten weeks to lose the weight. I ate lots of berries, nuts, and
sardines.” [James Israel and Cameron Yates]

Film u.s films in religulous movie

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Just as the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival got underway this
past weekend, industry attendees received a sobering statistic on
Monday morning: The weekend box-office in the U.S. was the lowest-
grossing in five years — about $67.6 million compared with $66.7
million since the same post-Labor Day period in 2003, according to
Media by Numbers. The bad news served as yet another reminder of the
film industry’s current precarious status, but those in Toronto were
determined to reinvigorate the movie-going audience.

The first such title to energize buyers: “The Wrestler,” an intimate
look at a burned-out ’80s wrestling star (played by Mickey Rourke),
which premiered in Toronto on Sunday night and was sold in an
overnight bidding war to Fox Searchlight for approximately $4 million.
The price tag makes it one of the biggest sales in the festival’s
history.

Several distribution companies clamored for the film, despite the fact
that the low-budget movie will need a careful and cautious theatrical
rollout. In the days after the screening, Mr. Rourke has been the talk
of the town as a possible Oscar contender. Fox Searchlight has
committed to releasing the film this December. (Fox Searchlight is
owned by ., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.)

At the world premiere of “The Wrestler,” director Darren Aronofsky
alluded to the fact that the movie was passed over by U.S. film
companies. He and his producer, Scott Franklin, sought financial
backing from the French foreign sales company, Wild Bunch, which has
increasingly become a prolific backer of filmmaker-driven titles
looking for funds.

Wild Bunch also backed another somewhat risky investment, Steven
Soderbergh’s four-hour Che Guevera epic, “Che,” which had its world
premiere in Cannes last May and is screening in Toronto in a slightly
shorter version. An unconventional biopic that cost a reported $60
million, the film made much of its budget back in international sales,
and finally closed a U.S. distribution deal with Cablevision’s IFC
Films on Wednesday morning. After Cannes, the film received two firm
offers from U.S. buyers, according to Wild Bunch sales head Vincent
Maraval, but the company has been holding out for significant money
upfront and a marketing commitment that specifically looks to the
Spanish speaking audience in the U.S. The film will be released for a
one-week awards- qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles in
December, then be available in theaters in January and via video-on-
demand.

Now that “The Wrestler’s” fate has been sealed, companies looking to
fill up their 2009 release schedules are turning to other available
films. Film buyers were generally upbeat about the quality of the
films on display. Though sales weren’t exactly brisk, negotiations
were heating up on several titles.

Summit Entertainment, the fledgling independent film studio backed by
, purchased U.S. rights to Katheryn Bigelow’s bomb disposal thriller,
“The Hurt Locker,” shortly after its North American premiere on Monday
night, even though the film is set in Iraq — a subject that has been
a curse at the box-office lately (look to last year’s “Lions for
Lambs” and “In the Valley of Elah”).

IFC Films, which acquired several films in Cannes, announced it had
acquired North American rights to the Swedish film “Everlasting
Moments” for its video-on-demand and theatrical releasing operations.
Even smaller films, such as the Filipino family drama “Serbis” and the
Chinese documentary “24 City” found small U.S. theatrical slots,
indicating that the art-house business is continuing to operate as
usual, despite concerns of changing audience habits and flattening DVD
sales.

Some smaller film distributors, including IFC, were also pursuing the
Irish film “Kisses,” a bittersweet movie about pre-teens on the run in
Dublin. Other films generating interest, according to sales agents and
acquisitions executives, include Richard Linklater’s period film “Me
and Orson Welles,” the Jennifer Aniston comedy “Management,” “Is There
Anybody There?,” starring Michael Caine, and a number of
documentaries, including “Soul Power,” about a , and “Every Little
Step,” a look at the making of the musical “A Chorus Line.”

The Toronto festival also gave a boost to a number of films already
set for release in U.S. theaters — including Sony Pictures Classics’s
“Rachel Getting Married,” Fox Searchlight’s “Slumdog Millionaire” and
Sony’s “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” — by generating positive
word-of-mouth.

Also looking for a publicity bump was Lionsgate’s “Religulous,” which
previewed in Toronto and opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 3. Starring
comedian Bill Maher who sets out to question and poke fun of the
world’s religions, the film follows in the footsteps of several other
controversial documentaries that have screened in the festival,
including the smash hit “Borat,” directed by “Religulous’s” Larry
Charles, the creator of “Seinfeld.” The festival also hosted the world
premiere of “Food, Inc.,” a damning investigation into industrial-food
production from the producers of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“Political films with a sharp edge have always had a place here at the
Toronto International Film Festival, ever since Michael Moore’s ‘Roger
& Me’ won the People’s Choice Award here 20 years ago,” said Toronto
documentary programmer Thom Powers.

But while the North American premiere of “Religulous” was well
attended, it did not produce the kind of fervor that had accompanied
the “Borat” and Michael Moore screenings in years past.

Outside the theater, the multi-denominational Canadian Coalition for
Organized Religion organized a protest of about a dozen people with
signs reading “Don’t Mock My Religion” and chanting “Pray for Bill” as
Mr. Maher walked by. Many of those going into the screening wondered
whether it was all a stunt organized by Mr. Charles and the comedian.
At a Q&A after the premiere, where Mr. Maher took jabs at Pentecostal
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, he set the record
straight: “It wouldn’t have been so lame if I had hired them,” he
said.

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