News from the Toronto Film Festival

Now celebrating its 28th year, the Toronto International Film Festival rivals Cannes and Sundance as the world's most influential film festival, screening over 300 films from 55 different countries. Highlights from this year's event include the debut of American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes." An ambling series of vignettes about personal addiction, starring Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, and Bill Murray, the film was acquired at the fest by United Artists.

Fresh from Venice, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu was in Toronto to promote the highly anticipated "21 Grams" starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro, who play three friends who are brought together after a car accident. Penn already received Best Actor at Venice for his performance. Romantic comedy cutie-pie Meg Ryan (photo, with co-star Mark Ruffalo) shocked audiences with her raw, sexually explicit performance in Jane Campion's "In The Cut."

Celebrities on hand promoting more than one film include Nicole Kidman "(Dogville," "The Human Stain"), Scarlett Johansson ("The Girl With The Pearl Earring," "Lost in Translation") and Sarah Polley ("My Life Without Me," "The Event.") For more news, check out indieWIRE's daily updates.