Brit movies score Toronto treble

We owe them a lot, those Canadians. Maple syrup, ice hockey and even Bryan Adams would probably top more than a few lists. But soon enough there’s going to be even more to be thankful for, because the organisers of the 39th annual Toronto Film Festival have just announced that this year’s bash will be giving no less than three British movies their world premieres.

The lucky winners are The Riot Club, The Theory of Everything and A Little Chaos, with the latter having the further honour of wrapping up the event.

Toronto will play host to more toffs than the Henley Regatta when The Riot Club, an adaptation of the Oxford University-set play Posh, rolls into town. The Theory of Everything, meanwhile, is the hugely anticipated biopic of scientist Stephen Hawking.

As for A Little Chaos, this is the second directorial stab from Alan Rickman, of Die Hard and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves fame. The former Hans Gruber also plays the main character of the piece, Louis XIV, in the period drama which centres around landscape gardener Kate Winslet ‘s invitation to design a fountain for the Palace of Versailles. For all this though, there has been some disappointment for the British movie industry. It has been well-represented at Toronto in the past, yet only a handful of films have made the lineup compared to 30 last year.

Back on the brightside for Blighty, Mr Turner and The Invitation Game will be screened in Canada for the first time at the festival, whilst the big screen version of 80s TV series The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington, will be unleashed on the world. Yes, this is most certainly grasping at straws, but Edward Woodward, who originally played the title character, was English, so we can lay some kind of claim to it.

The 2014 Toronto Film Festival will run from September 4-14.