By Alicia Sealey

It’s that time of the year again when Toronto becomes Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood combined for 11 glorious days of some of the best films that the world has to offer.

The 41^st annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) starts on today and runs through to Sunday, Sept 18. It will showcase 296 feature films and 101 short films. All films are posted on TIFF’s website at www.tiff.net which is now very user-friendly. Let me explain.

On its festival home page, you have several options to find films that would be of interest. You can search via programs (there are 16), via country of film origin (there are 83), and/or via areas of interest. You will be able to search for films by topic; from activism to aging, Caribbean to coming of age, LGBTQ to social change. In total, there are 104 areas of interest; each will yield all the films in said category.

For the third year, TIFF will be shutting down King Street between Peter St. and University Ave from Sept. 8 -11. Several activities are planned. They include  free film screenings and  an entertainment stage that will feature performances from up-and-coming musical talent.

The festival’s opening film is the world premiere of Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven starring Denzel Washington. This marks their third collaboration (Training Day, The Equalizer).

Washington is expected to be in town to introduce the film.