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 great experience to be there." For the film, Bigelow sought to immerse audiences "into something that was raw, immediate and visceral". Impressed with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd's work on "United 93" and "The Wind That Shakes the Barley," Bigelow invited him to work on her film. While the film was independently produced and filmed on a low budget, Bigelow used four Super 16 mm cameras to capture multiple perspectives, saying, "That's how we experience reality, by looking at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously. The eye sees differently than the lens, but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style,