Air canada film in leading hotels of the world website

The Second Annual Air Canada enRoute Student Film Festival Announces
Sponsors – Ford Returns as Presenting Sponsor

– Screening and Awards Gala takes place November 5th in Toronto –

MONTREAL, Oct. 1 /CNW Telbec/ – The Second Annual Air Canada enRoute
Student Film Festival today announced its sponsors for its upcoming awards
gala to be held November 5th in Toronto. Ford Motor company returns as this
year’s presenting sponsor. Other returning sponsors are Krups, Playback
magazine, the Director’s Guild of Canada, Metropolitan Hotels and Cineplex
Entertainment. New sponsors this year include The Spoke Club, Palm Springs
International Film Festival, Bullet Digital and pre-screening partners Ouat
Media.
The student who wins in the Best Film category will take home a brand new
2009 Ford Focus vehicle and an Air Canada, all-inclusive roundtrip for two to
the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January. The Festival was
launched in 1990 by Sonny Bono and features a stellar line-up of more than
200 films from 60 countries, special events and gala receptions.
Pre-gala screenings for the Air Canada enRoute Student Film Festival are
being held at the Scotiabank Theatre (Cineplex) in downtown Toronto on
November 5th. The films are being chosen by the festival’s jury members: Dan
Aykroyd, Wendy Crewson, Colm Feore, Arsinée Khanjian and Andrea Martin,
Canadian Film Directors Patricia Rozema, Rob Stewart, Yves Simoneau and
Toronto International Film Festival CEO Noah Cowan. Winners will be announced
the same evening at the Awards Gala hosted by The Spoke Club.
Air Canada passengers can view the selected short films on the main
screen televisions and personal seatback entertainment systems. The films can
also be viewed online at http://www.enroutefilm.com. The Festival is produced by
Spafax Canada.

enRoute, Air Canada’s in-flight magazine, celebrates Canadian achievement
in film, music, design and cultural innovation. The monthly magazine has
received numerous awards including Best Travel Magazine at the 2007 North
American Travel Journalists’ Association Awards. Every month enRoute profiles
the student films being showcased in-flight.

Montreal-based Air Canada provides scheduled and charter air
transportation for passengers and cargo to more than 170 destinations on five
continents. Canada’s flag carrier is the 14th largest commercial airline in
the world and serves 34 million customers annually with a fleet consisting of
335 aircraft. Air Canada is a founding member of Star Alliance, providing the
world’s most comprehensive air transportation network for Canadian domestic,
transborder and international travel. Air Canada aircraft offer customers
individualized seatback in-flight entertainment systems with hundreds of hours
of digital audio-visual entertainment. As well, customers can collect Aeroplan
miles for future awards through Canada’s leading loyalty program.

For further information: Marsha Mowers, Vision/Co, (416) 341-2474 x270,
marsham@visioncompanies.com; Isabelle Arthur, Communications, Air Canada,
(514) 422-5788, isabelle.arthur@aircanada.ca

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?