WikiLeaks thriller to open at Toronto THE thriller The Fifth Estate starring English actor Benedict Cumberbatch as Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will take centre stage on the opening day of the Toronto Film Festival. The 11-day festival, which begins with the world premiere of The Fifth Estate on Thursday (0900 AEST Friday), is a potential launching pad for Oscar hopefuls and attracts a who's who of actors and filmmakers, including Australia's elite. Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Chris Hemsworth, Mia Wasikowska, Toni Collette, Joel Edgerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Guy Pearce and Ryan Kwanten have films at Toronto. There's also a handful of young Australian first-time feature directors hoping to create some buzz and sell the international rights for their films to big-spending Hollywood studios and film distributors. Sarah Spillane, who wrote and directed Around the Block, a film set in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern and starring a young Australian cast, veteran Jack Thompson and Hollywood actress Christina Ricci, will make its world premiere on Friday (Saturday AEST). Kidman's potential Oscar winner, The Railway Man, co-starring Colin Firth and partly shot in Queensland, will also hold its world premiere on Friday. Jackman will continue to build Oscar momentum with his thriller Prisoners. Aaron Wilson's Canopy, about an Australian airman shot down in the jungles of Singapore during World War II, and Mystery Road, a crime drama shot in the central west Queensland town of Winton and starring Aaron Pederson, Hugo Weaving, Jack Thompson, Zoe Carides and Kwanten, will also be hoping to make waves in Canada. There will be 366 films, including 146 world premieres, shown at the Toronto Film Festival. It runs from September 5-15.