Up in Toronto, they don't know how many people come to the big film festival, but they do know how many tickets they sell: 250,000.

        That's a healthy audience by any standard for the 265 feature-length films and 80 shorts to be shown during the 10-day Toronto International Film Festival, which opens Thursday.

        The quarter-million tickets do not include another 50,000 admissions for moviemakers, exhibitors, journalists and other industry viewers from around the world.

        Keeping track of all those fans, journalists, filmmakers, celebrities, volunteers and publicists — not to mention hotel space, movie prints, theaters and press conferences — poses a head-spinning challenge and a frenzied schedule.

        All the activity is testimony to the fact that the festival has become an indispensable showcase for new movies that will fill theater screens for the next year or more.

        Among the festival's intriguing fare:

        • Music figures prominently in what may prove to be the festival's hottest ticket, rapper Eminem's movie debut in 8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential). Two music documentaries also promise to draw crowds, MC5: A True Testimonial about the radical late-'60s band, and Standing in the Shadows of Motown about the Funk Brothers, the house band that has played on more hit records than any other artists.

        • Actor-directors are, as always, well represented. Denzel Washington unveils his debut effort, Antwone Fisher; Matt Dillon shows his first film, City of Ghosts; Robert Duvall (The Apostle) returns with Assassination Tango, and British actor Peter Mullan (My Name Is Joe) weighs in with The Magdalene Sisters.

        • Star power will be much in evidence in Moonlight Mile, with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon; Far From Heaven,with Julianne Moore and Dannis Quaid; and White Oleander with Michelle Pfeiffer and Renee Zellweger. The most unexpected big-name movie could be Punch-Drunk Love, with Adam Sandler and Emily Watson falling in love for director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights).

        • Michael Moore is likely to draw a crowd with Bowling for Columbine, his take on American gun culture. Also high on the documentary list are Stevie, from Hoop Dreams director Steve James, and Lost in La Mancha, about director Terry Gilliam's frustrated efforts to make a movie on Don Quixote.

        • New works from respected directors include Spider from David Cronenberg (Crash); The Good Thief from Neil Jordan (The Crying Game);both The Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence from Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games); Talk To Her fromPedro Almodovar (All About My Mother);and Laurel Canyon from Lisa Cholodenko (High Art).

        • Because Sept. 11 fell in the middle of last year's festival, the most emotionally charged offering may be The Guys, by Jim Simpson, with Sigourney Weaver as a writer who helps a grief-stricken fire captain (Anthony LaPaglia) write eulogies for members of his company who died at the World Trade Center. (A theatrical version of The Guys opens Wednesday at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati).

9-11 tributes in film

Art from the ashes
Ohio is a player at Toronto film festival
Toronto abuzz as film fest opening nears
Ely steals Flatlanders show
Get to it
'The Jackies' salute a dazzling season of hometown theater
DEMALINE: Seventh-grader debuts at Playhouse
DAUGHERTY: Bows disappear on Dad's 'little girl'
Maisonette experience less pricey at lunch
MARTIN: Class meet in the kitchen
Serve it this week: Okra