With the Venice Film Festival behind them, HFPA members are heading for Toronto where almost 400 films will be crammed into 11 days. By far the biggest of the fall festivals, it has shown the last six Best Picture winners and five of last year’s Best Foreign Film nominees. The festival opens with the world premiere of The Fifth Estate, director Bill Condon’s dramatic thriller about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, which HFPA members will be attending. During the next six days they will see another 14 movies, visit the set of the TV series Hannibal and interview 36 actors, actresses and filmmakers. This year the festival is showcasing an unusually wide variety of films, including Ron Howard’s race car movie Rush; Steve McQueen’s 12 Years as a Slave; Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet; The Railway Man with Colin Firth, The Dallas Buyers Club, which stars Matthew McConaughey and two upscale science fiction movies, starring Sandra Bullock (Gravity) and Scarlett Johansson (Under the Skin). The Toronto festival has always served as a critical early stop for movies that will embark on significant awards campaigns in the fall. Last year Silver Linings Playbook and Argo both established themselves as potential hits and Golden Globe front-runners.