It's a real place to discover new talent, the Toronto International Film Festival. Just ask Niki Caro. Three years ago, she showed up as a complete unknown at North America's biggest movie showcase, with a little film about a young Maori girl bucking convention to become leader of her patriarchal tribe. A.P. reports.

"Incredibly gifted and uncompromising, Penn relishes complex film roles that make the public squirm and think deeply. His newest role, in Niels Mueller's 'The Assassination of Richard Nixon,' is another dark journey into a tortured mind and soul. Like his previous performances in '21 Grams' and 'Mystic River,' this part required Penn to turn himself inside out, and let all his internal organs and wires hang out," Gayle MacDonald speaks with Penn in Toronto for the Globe and Mail.

"So there we were whooping it up at a gay male strip club Sunday night -- Ladies Night! -- with the 'venereal Messiah" himself (of MTV's 'Jackass' fame), the ever delightfully tasteless director with the pencilled-in moustache, actress Selma Blair, 'X-Men' director Bryan Singer, actor Henry Thomas..." The Globe and Mail's Alexandra Gill spills all the debaucherous details of a celeb-filled night out at Toronto gay strip club Remmingtons. (And we do mean full-frontal).

Each year festival organizers unveil a full list of filmmakers and celebs expected to attend the annual event. This year's lists include some 400 notables who will make the trek to Toronto. Add in the entourages for each of the VIP's listed below (including publicists, assistants, grooming and styling professionals, drivers, pets, family, and assorted friends, not to mention spouses or significant others) and you've got quite a party...

Get a peak at the complete list below.

Celeb-spotting is always a popular pastime for locals and paparazzi who converge on Yorkville hotspots in Toronto. Pete Howell from the Toronto Star weighs in with an early list of notables expected in T-dot for this year's festival. Over at the Globe and Mail, Alexandra Gill offers a few names as well.