There's only a few days left until movie mania takes over the T-Dot for this year's Toronto International Film Festival, but as one gears up, another closes. Monday marked the end of Montreal's 31st World Film Festival, and this year there was a tie for the top. The Grand Prix of Americas jury prize went to two pretty different films -- Nic Balthazar's Ben X, about an autistic boy bullied at school, and Claude Miller's A Secret, about a Jewish family during and after WWII. While Balthazar's film had to share the top honor, it did get a boost by also nabbing the audience award for Most Popular Film. Sometimes juries and audiences do agree!

But of course, the winners don't stop there. The Special Grand Prix from the jury went to a film called Noodle by Ayelet Menahemi, Best Director was given to Jacob Berger for 1 Day, Best Artistic Contribution went to Ray Loriga for Teresa: El Cuerpo de Cristo, Best Actress was given to Andrea Sawaktzki for The Other Boy, Filipe Duarte and Tomás Almeida will share the Best Actor award for A Outra Margem, Samira's Garden picked up Best Screenplay for Latif Lahlou, and D75-Tartina City got the Innovation Award. There's also a bunch of Zenith awards and further audience picks which you can check out over at the Festival's awards press release. With that said and done, who will win Canada's next list of festival awards at TIFF?

If I said to you "Want to go to Jerusalem?" your first reaction probably wouldn't be: "What movies are playing there?" but that's the way my diseased mind works. So I did a little surfing and found the site for the Jerusalem Cinematheque. They show up to five different films every day, and the programs are fascinating. For example, on Monday, August 20, they're screening Because I Said So (Diane Keaton today), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Diane Keaton in the '70s), Odette Toulemonde (a recent comedy from France/Belgium) and Le Process de Jeanne D'Arc (Robert Bresson's 1962 version). Next Friday they're showing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean, two by David Fincher (Zodiac and Se7en) and the 1938 Pygmalion. Other titles this month include lesser-seen films by Samuel Fuller, Peter Bogdanovich and Clint Eastwood, plus a good selection from France and India.

As far as mainstream movies go, you can rest assured that Israelis are also subjected to the likes of Rush Hour 3, Bratz: The Movie and No Reservations. (They're even showing Evan Almighty.) But there are also Israeli titles like The Secrets ("two women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture"), Beaufort (tense months for young soldiers just before Israel pulled out of Lebanon), Noodle (Mili Avatal (pictured) as a widowed flight attendant dealing with an abandoned Chinese boy), Stefan Braun (a very personal doc in which a man grieves for his lost love), News From Home (Amos Gitai's doc about memory and identity) and Jellyfish (an acclaimed drama about three women in Tel Aviv).

Beyond that generous assortment to choose from, a number of independent foreign films are playing. Some have already opened in the US (La Vie en Rose, The Boss of It All, The Golden Door, Private Fears in Public Places, After the Wedding, Sunflower ), while others have not (Irina Palm, Hunting and Gathering). Overall, I'd have to say that Jerusalem has an enviable variety of films playing.