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
Ed Harris Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. Also that year, he played a vengeful mobster in David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" (2005) starring Viggo Mortensen. In 2006, he portrayed composer Ludwig van Beethoven in the film "Copying Beethoven", and starred in the television documentary film "The Armenian Genocide" as American diplomat Leslie Davis. He next appeared alongside Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman in the Ben Affleck directed neo noir mystery film "Gone Baby Gone" (2007). Harris then co-starred as the antagonist Mitch