Swank stars as a lawyer looking for a missing man in Red Dust

It includes a premiere of Red Dust, a film about the official apartheid investigations in South Africa, starring Oscar-winner Hilary Swank.

The annual festival opens with the world premiere of Being Julia, starring Jeremy Irons and Annette Bening.

French director Jean-Luc Godard will also show his new film Notre Musique.

More than 300 films from 50 countries will be shown on 21 screens during the Canadian festival.

A special category, called South Africa: 10 Years Later, will feature films that tackle South Africa's apartheid regime, which ended in 1994.

Zulu film

"Definitely there will be a South African flavour," festival co-director Noah Cowan said on Tuesday. "There's an exceptional crop of new films from there," he said.

Red Dust is a BBC production starring Swank as a lawyer who tries to find a missing man during the hearings for South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Another film, Forgiveness, sees Mummy actor Arnold Vosloo playing a policeman who is given amnesty by the commission, but tries to find one of his victim's family to ask forgiveness.

The festival will also include a screening of the South African film Yesterday - the first film to be shot in the Zulu language.

It is about a woman's struggle to come to terms with Aids.