Toronto rolls out the red carpet

September 05, 2008 Even before the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival kicked off Thursday with a gala premiere of Paul Gross' wartime romance "Passchendaele," a number of films in the lineup, ranging from the horror film "Vinyan" to the lyrical documentary "Of Time and the City," found buyers. Fabrice Du Welz's film stars Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart as a couple searching for their missing son in a jungle filled with feral children. At the opening-night screening of "Passchendaele" at Roy Thomas Hall, the invitation-only audience embraced the epic romance as a crowd-pleaser, in contrast to recent years in which homegrown films that opened Toronto underwhelmed.

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