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Exclusive: In a competitive situation, Clement Virgo has signed with WME in advance of the TIFF world premiere of Brother, starring Lamar Johnson, Aaron Pierre and Marsha Stephanie Black. His debut feature, Rude, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard and opened the Perspectives Canada program at TIFF. His credits includes the boxing drama Poor Boy’s Game, Lie With Me and Love Come Down.

On the TV side, he directed and co-wrote the six part miniseries adaptation of Lawrence Hill’s novel The Book of Negroes. The series debuted to record-breaking numbers on the CBC in Canada and on BET in the U.S. and went on to win twelve Canadian Screen Awards and earned two U.S. Critics Choice TV Awards nominations for Best Limited Series and Best Actress in a Limited Series (Aunjanue Ellis). He also directed the pilot of the drama series Greenleaf, and...

Charles Burnett's Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation was awarded the PAFF Vision Award at the 16th annual Pan African & Arts Festival, which ended Sunday.

The fest, which took place at the AMC Magic Johnson Crenshaw 15 Theaters in Los Angeles, gave its best documentary prize to Pierre-Yves Borgeaud's Return to Goree.

Bryon Hurt's Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes was named best short documentary, while Dee Rees' Pariah was best narrative short.

Clement Virgo's Poor Boy's Game was chosen best feature.

Ernst Gossner was named best director, first feature, for his film South of Pico.

Leon Lozano's Something is Killing Tate took the fest's Oscar Micheaux Award, as well as the audience award for favorite feature.

The favorite documentary was Ava DuVernay's This is the Life, and favorite short were Daniel Junge's docu Iron Ladies of Liberia and Deon H. Hayman's narrative short The Don of Virgil Jr. High.

TORONTO -- Boxing drama Poor Boy's Game, starring Danny Glover, was the big winner as the Atlantic Film Festival dished out its trophies Friday.

Clement Virgo's latest film, shot last year in Halifax, won trophies for best Atlantic Canadian movie and original screenplay for Virgo and Chaz Thorne as the festival handed out trophies Friday.

Bill Fleming picked up the art direction prize for his work on the film, which bowed in Berlin.

Halifax-based Chaz Thorne also picked up the festival's best director trophy for Just Buried, his debut feature about a young loner, played by Jay Baruchel, who unexpectedly inherits his estranged father's struggling funeral home.

The other big winner in Halifax was Toronto director Bruce McDonald, who grabbed the best Canadian feature prize for The Tracey Fragments, a drama about a young girl looking for her younger brother, who thinks he's a dog.

The movie's lead, Halifax-based Ellen Page, took home the best actress trophy, while the best actor nod went to veteran Quebec actor Roy Dupuis for his turn in Shake Hands With the Devil, which opened the festival on Sept.

TORONTO -- David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, starring Naomi Watts and Viggo Mortensen, and Denys Arcand's Days of Darkness will get the red-carpet treatment at the Toronto International Film Festival, organizers said Tuesday.

The latest work from veteran Canadian directors Cronenberg and Arcand -- whose film closed Cannes this year -- will receive galas at Roy Thomson Hall.

Unveiling the Canadian contingent in Toronto, festival organizers said they have booked Francois Girard's Keira Knightley starrer Silk from Picturehouse and New Line International, Roger Spottiswoode's Rwandan drama Shake Hands With the Devil and Clement Virgo's boxing tale Poor Boy's Game, starring Danny Glover, for Special Presentations slots.

Also joining the Special Presentations program is Adam Vollick's Here Is What Is, a portrait of famed record producer Daniel Lanois, and Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, billed as a "docu-fantasia" about the filmmaker's hometown.

Canadian films unspooling as part of Toronto's Contemporary World Cinema section include Leonard Farlinger's All Hat; Bruce Sweeney's American Venus, starring Rebecca De Mornay; Bernard Emond's Contre Toute Esperance, which will also screen in Locarno; and Carl Bessai's Carrie-Anne Moss starrer Normal.

Also joining the CWC party is Laurie Lynd's Breakfast With Scot, Denis Cote's Nos Vies Privees and Kari Skogland's The Stone Angel, the big-screen adaptation of the classic Margaret Laurence novel, starring Ellen Burstyn.

COLOGNE, Germany -- The Berlin International Film Festival's Panorama section will feature 26 world premieres in a lineup that represents a typically eclectic mix of established art house names including Hal Hartley, Wim Wenders, Steve Buscemi and Sarah Polley, along with a raft of first-time helmers.

Buscemi and Polley represent one trend in this year's Panorama lineup: actors behind the camera. Buscemi will screen his latest directorial effort, Interview, while Polley's helming debut, Away From Her, will premiere as part of the Panorama Special section.

Other actor-directors at this year's Panorama include Julie Delpy, with Two Days In Paris, and Antonio Banderas, whose Summer Rain also has been selected for the Panorama.

Polley is one of three Canadian entries this year, joining Panorama opener The Tracey Fragments from Bruce McDonald and Clement Virgo's drama Poor Boy's Game.

U.S. independents also have a strong presence, with titles ranging from Hartley's tale of international espionage, Fay Grim, to Jamie Babbit's high-school-set comedy Itty Bitty Titty Committee to such politically-tinged documentaries as Lynn Hershmann Leeson's Strange Culture and Miss Gulag by Maria Yatskova.