Always a highlight on the film festival circuit – one of the world's most prestigious, and its director is a black man!

I'm talking about the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and Cameron Bailey, its director, who travels the world almost year-round, discovering unknown titles to premiere at his premiere film festival.

You'll get the familiar and the not-so familiar. It's a festival I've yet to attend, but that I've wanted to for some time. And unfortunately, 2012 won't be the year I finally make my first trip. 2013 however, is more than likely.

Over the last 3 weeks, we've been highlighting films of interest to this blog, and will continue to do so, likely through and after the festival is over.

Earleir today TIFF unveiled titles in its Contemporary World Cinema, Wavelengths and Special Presentation categories. We'll be going through each list in search of Diasporic content not yet covered here (and at first glance, I saw a few, which is great; I always love discovering new titles). But before that, I'll quickly notify you of 4 titles we've covered quite a bit already, that will be screening at TIFF this year – one of them making it's international debut.

Those 4 films are Lee Daniels' The Paperboy (in the Special Presentation section; it will be released in USA theaters on October 5); Ava DuVernay's Middle Of Nowhere (making its international debut in the festival's Contemporary World Cinema section; it's set for an October 12 USA theatrical release); Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl’s drama Paradise: Love (also in the Contemporary World Cinema section); and finally the Egyptian drama Baad el Mawkeaa (After The Battle), directed by Yousry Nasrallah (also in the Contemporary World Cinema section).

Even though I won't be there personally, I'm planning to have some representation at the festival, so that we can get a few reviews, because there appear to be a number of interesting-looking titles we haven't seen, and thus haven't reviewed yet.