2008 Toronto International Film Festival 2008 Toronto International Film Festival The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, (TIFF) was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This 33rd annual festival was from September 4 to September 13, 2008. The opening night gala was the World War I romantic epic "Passchendaele" from Canadian director Paul Gross. Festival is heavy on Canadian fare as well as featuring prominent indie films and worldwide and/or North American debuts including: "Adoration" directed by Canada's own Atom Egoyan, "Appaloosa" the second film from Ed Harris (who directed "Pollock"), "Blindness" from screenwriter-director, Fernando Meirelles, Iraq war thriller "The Hurt Locker" directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and
The Hurt Locker "We were working with grainy Super 16mm film, editing in standard definition. We tried doing FTP downloads, but at the time the facilities in Jordan simply couldn't handle it." The producer Tony Mark later negotiated the use of a local radio station late at night to receive low-grade QuickTime clips over the Internet so the crew would not be shooting blindly. "The Hurt Locker" received universal acclaim, with Renner's performance receiving praise from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 97%, based on 271 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 8.5/10. It was the second highest-rated