The Toronto International Film Festival has announced 25 NorthAmerican premieres for its 31st outing this September, a line-updescribed as the best picks fromthe 2005-2006 international festival calendar.

The selection includes Cannes highlights such as Ken Loach's Palmed'Or winner The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Grand Prize winner Bruno Dumont's Flandres, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's BestDirector winner Babeland Corneliu Porumboiu's Camera d'Or winner 12:08 East Of Bucharest.

'Our primary allegiance at the festival is to our loyalaudiences,' said TIFF co-director Noah Cowan in a statement. 'To thatend, we select the very best films from key, primarily European, festivalswhich run before our own. We bring these films back to our continent for a'second unveiling.' They are films that have moved us, by way of theirbeauty, originality and overall cinematic achievement.'

The low-key nature of the announcement - in past years suchtitles would have warranted a press conference -- suggests TIFF is preparing awar chest of world premieres. As previously announced, the festival opensSeptember 7 with the world premiere of Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn's TheJournals Of Knud Rasmussen.

North American premieres at Toronto
12:08 East Of Bucharestdir. Corneliu Porumboiu (Bulgaria) CWC*
Babel dir. AlejandroGonzalez Inarritu (Mexico) Special Presentation
Bamako dir.Abderrahmane Sissako (France/Mali/US) Visions
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A dir.Takeshi Miike (Japan) Visions
Bliss dir. Sheng Zhimin (China) Discovery
The Bothersome Mandir. Jens Lien (Norway) CWC
The Caiman dir. NanniMoretti (Italy) Masters
Cronica De Una Fugadir. Adrian Caetano (Argentina)
Flandres dir. BrunoDumont (France) Visions
Invisible Waves dir.Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Thailand/Netherlands/Hong Kong) CWC
Jindabyne dir. RayLawrence (Australia) CWC
Lights In The Duskdir. Aki Kaurismaki (Finland/Germany/France) Masters
Red Road dir. AndreaArnold (UK) CWC
Reprise dir. JoachimTrier (Norway) Discovery
Retrieval dirSlawomir Fabicki (Poland) CWC
Shortbus dir. JohnCameron Mitchell (US) CWC
Summer '04 dir.Stefan Krohme (Germany) CWC
Summer Palace dir.Lou Ye (China/France) CWC
Taxidermia dir. GyorgyPalfi (Hungary/Austria/France) Visions
Ten Canoes dir. Rolfde Heer (Australia) Visions
These Girls dir. TahaniRached (Egypt) Real To Reel
Time dir. Kim Ki-duk(South Korea) Visions
To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die dir. Djamshed Usmonov (France/Germany/Switzerland/Russia)CWC
White Palms dir.Szabolcs Hajdu (Hungary) CWC
The Wind That Shakes The Barley dir. Ken Loach (Fr./Ireland/UK/Italy/Spain/Ger)

Masters

* CWC indicates the Contemporary World Cinema section of thefestival.