By Tom Brook In Toronto

In The Cut sees Meg Ryan return to the big screen in a radically different role

Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Meg Ryan and Sir Anthony Hopkins are just a few of the big stars who will arrive in Toronto in the next few days to add glitz to North America's biggest film festival.

More than 300 films from 53 countries will unspool during the ten-day festival, which now rivals Cannes in terms of size and influence.

Some 40 UK films are being shown. One of the most eagerly anticipated is a work-in-progress, Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson and Colin Firth.

The film marks the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of Four Weddings and A Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary. The picture is an ambitious love story encompassing eight different romances.

British actor David Thewlis will also be making his directorial debut in Toronto with the world premi�re of Cheeky.

British film Love Actually is tipped to be a global hit

It stars Thelwis and Trudie Styler in a family drama and comedy which revolves around a sorrowful widower who remakes himself.

Another British highlight is I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, a crime drama set in London which reunites director Mike Hodges with Clive Owen, who starred in his critically acclaimed 1998 picture Croupier.

By tradition, the festival kicks off with a Canadian film and this year director Denys Arcand's The Barbarian Invasions has been chosen.

This picture, which won prizes at Cannes, charts the final days of a dying man as he interacts with his extended family, including an estranged son.

The festival will close with Danny Deckchair, an Australian film starring Rhys Ifans as a cement truck driver trying to escape from suburban monotony.

Award hopes

Increasingly, Toronto is seen as the festival where the studios preview the films they think will win awards.

Past Oscar winners Chariots of Fire, American Beauty and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were all launched at Toronto.

The Human Stain : Sir Anthony Hopkins (right) and director Robert Benton

This year's awards season is shorter with the Academy Awards now taking place a month earlier than usual, so Toronto may play an even more vital role in bringing attention to possible Oscar candidates.

Sir Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman will be in town to publicise their adaptation of the Philip Roth novel, The Human Stain. Hopkins plays an academic who masks his African-American roots.

Another film shown at Venice, director Sir Ridley Scott's conman movie Matchstick Men, starring Nicolas Cage, will be also be given a gala screening in Toronto.

Among the world premi�res in Toronto, one picture that has raised expectations is In The Cut, a thriller from esteemed New Zealand director Jane Campion starring Meg Ryan.

The film sees Ryan break out of her usual cutesy romantic comedy roles, playing against type as a teacher in an apparently steamy relationship with a New York police detective portrayed by Mark Ruffalo.

Other notable world premi�res include Robert Altman's The Company - this time the master of ensemble drama has created a story set among ballet dancers starring Neve Campbell and Malcolm McDowell.

Great expectations

Distributors are especially keen on bringing films to Toronto because it is perceived as a people's festival, open to a public that tends to be far less cynical than the industry audiences at Cannes and Sundance.

Nicholas Cage and Alison Lohman star in Matchstick Men

Also, the festival attracts a large number of high-profile critics. In one stroke, film executives can use Toronto screenings to measure both the critical response to their pictures as well as their potential as crowd-pleasers.

This year the festival, which is non-competitive, will be more than just a celebration of cinema.

It will be partly a public relations effort to convince the outside world that Toronto has a festive spirit and is back to normal in the wake of the clusters of Sars cases that emerged in the city earlier this year.

Indeed, the mood in this lakeside city is positive with many predicting that this year Toronto may outshine the big European film festivals both in terms of star wattage and quality of pictures.

As the spring line-up in Cannes was widely viewed as lacklustre, Toronto looks set to steal the autumnal thunder.