The cinema of Brazil has been selected for the NationalCinema programme at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, Sept.4-13.

Programmer Diana Sanchez will select between eight and ten titles.The announcement is a strong indication that Toronto will be presenting newworks from two of Brazil's leading auteurs, Hector Babenco and Walter Salles.

Babenco'sCarandiru, a hit at home, is incompetition at Cannes; Salles' Che Guevara biopic The MotorcycleDiaries, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, willlikely premiere at Venice.

Babenco's 1981 Pixote and his 1985 English-language debut TheKiss Of The Spiderwoman both screened at Toronto.

The festival mounted its first Brazilian retrospective in 1982and since then has screened the highlights of the past two decades, including Salles'Central Station, Madame Sata by Karim Anouz, Aluizio Abranches' TheThree Marias, Brainstorm by Lais Bodanzky, Toni Venturi's LatitudeZero, Brave New Land by Lucia Murat, Turbulence by Ruy Guerra, Me, You, Them by Andrucha Waddington, and last year's sensation, CityOf God by Fernando Meirelles.

In recent years, Toronto's National Cinema programme hasfocused on South Korea, Nordic countries, Spain, Japan, the Balkans, Vietnam,Iran, and Poland.