This week saw the announcement of an array of films for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which starts on September 8th.

Leading the pack is Luc Besson’s latest film. Surprisingly, it doesn’t involve guns or hot naked bods. Rather The Lady is a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy politician who spent over a decade under house arrest and away from her family in the militant Burma. This change of pace for Besson will be an interesting pic. Also debuting will be Alex Payne’s long-awaited follow-up to Sideways, The Descendants, which stars George Clooney, as well as Cronenberg’s Freud/Jung tale A Dangerous Method, and Cannes darling The Artist. And for a complete list of films check out the official site.

The Toronto Film Festival is an essential industry event, and often a platform for releasing some of the biggest independent and arthouse films of the year. It often marks the start of movie awards buzz, and indeed the winner of last year’s festival People’s Choice awards was a little film called The King’s Speech.

Valhalla Rising was directed by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn. The screenplay was co-written by Refn and fellow Danish writer Roy Jacobsen. The film already premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Fests last year and was picked up by IFC Films. Valhalla Rising will open in theaters on July 16, 2010.

When a film advertises that it wins awards, I’m always inclined to take notice.  I mean, come on–it’s an award winner.  Even if all it got was Best of Show at the East Podunk Film Society Festival, it’s an award nonetheless.

So tackling The Zombie left me more than a little surprised.  It ranked in the top ten at the Zombie Short Film Festival in Toronto.

Basically, here, we’ll be looking at a zombie who finds some food, and all’s going well…until something finds the zombie.

Sure, it’s simplistic–but it’s actually pretty well done, especially for some small-timers putting together a short in what amounts to someone’s garage.  I’m actually very surprised at the overall quality of the effects work.  In fact, if this were part of a larger film, it would probably be an indicator of a pretty good film to come.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives plenty of respect to this production and hands it a seven out of ten.  Sure, it’s not very satisfying, but it’s plenty tasty, and that counts for a lot.