This year’s Toronto International Film Festival will have a strong Italian flavor, with six films and no less than 11 co-productions with Italian partners selected for the various sections. This strong showing makes it possible to sample the range and depth of the country’s current movie scene and underlines the growing importance of Toronto as a showcase for Italian productions. After having won high acclaim in Cannes, Marco Bellocchio will present the North American premiere of VINCERE in the MASTERS section. Another Italian master, Giuseppe Tornatore, will show his panoramic costume drama BAARIA in the section SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS. Equally well-represented is a younger generation of Italian directors. THE FRONT LINE, Renato De Maria’s timely take on Italy’s experience with political terrorism in the 1970s will be screened as a World Premiere in the section SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS. The heart-rending love story GIULIA DOESN’T DATE AT NIGHT by Giuseppe Piccioni will be shown as part of CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA, as will be the thriller THE DOUBLE HOUR, the eagerly awaited debut of helmer Giuseppe Capotondi. Luca Guadagnino’s I AM LOVE, shown in the VISIONS section, can credit a glamorous cast of producers with Mikado Film SpA, Silvia Venturini Fendi’s First Sun and Tilda Swinton. Swinton also stars in the movie, appearing together with Alba Rohrwacher, one of Italy’s shooting stars. The notable co-productions include LA PIVELLINA by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel in the DISCOVERY section and I, DON GIOVANNI by Carlos Saura, set in Venice with an all-Italian cast, as a GALA PRESENTATION. The Italian presence at the Toronto Film Festival is coordinated by the Italian Trade Commission in Toronto and by Cinecitta’/Luce Filmitalia Department.