The reason that I love covering the Toronto International Film Festival (and I've covered them all, from Rotterdam to Puerto Rico and I've covered this one for 20 years!) is that not only can you see the mainstream big blockbusters that will set box office records, but you'll see bi-themed movies that will eventually get Oscar nominated (like "Brokeback Mountain" and "American Beauty") and see small indie, documentaries and foreign films that no one will pay any attention to unless you tout them (like "Three of Hearts" and the just-released French film "Man of My Life" which I saw at last year's festival). Most of the other festivals focus on one kind of movie-this one has them all combined. The trick is to sift through the more than 300 new films to find the best. Of course, sometimes you're sworn to secrecy about a certain film that is bi related (like the year we had to keep "The Crying Game" secret for nearly six months before it came to the United States), and the same goes for a particularly bi-themed film and it would ruin it if I told you, but that's another column.

It's nice to see that after "Brokeback" made attractions between macho men quite sexy and palatable, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" wasn't afraid to hint an attraction between Brad Pitt's Jesse James and Casey Affleck's portrayal of the obsessive fan Bob Ford. It shows Ford keeping mementos of James like a schoolgirl with a crush and Manohla Dargis at The New York Times said when Ford caresses the cover of a dime novel about the anti-hero "it's as if he were tenderly stroking a lover's cheek." Then, when James is relaxing in a bathtub, the young Ford watches to the point that James says, "You want to be like me, or do you want to be me?" That's as far as the attraction goes, except that the "if I can't have him, no one will" obsession becomes apparent until the very end.

Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck [George Pimentel/WireImage for TIFFG]

Peter Greenaway isn't afraid of either bisexuality ("The Pillow Book") nor male frontal nudity, so he has some of it in "Nightwatching," which explores the real lives of the people depicted in Rembrandt's famous "Night Watch" painting. The two foppish guys with a girl between them have a bi history, and Rembrandt suggests that the father of one of them like's both boys and girls, too.

Peter Greenaway

Just released, but screened first in Toronto, was "The Jane Austen Book Club" which has a sister of the lead hunk character (Hugh Dancy) who is out as bisexual and plays a key pivotal role. Cat (played by Nancy Travis), is unapologetically bisexual, and young actress Maggie Grace plays a lesbian. When it looks like Grace's character is somewhat attracted to Dancy's character, I asked the actress what she thought of the potential of her bisexuality. "I don't think she was ever bisexual, I think she's very sure of her orientation and she has a pretty healthy relationship with men," Grace told me in an interview. "It's helpful that they are not clichés of gay women who hate men. All kinds of women could like men, bisexual, gay, whatever."

Hugh Dancy & Nancy Travis in "The Jane Austen Book Club"

There's a fascinating Argentine film called "XXY" about a hermaphrodite brought up as a girl by first-time director Lucia Puenzo, who was influenced by a short story written by her husband about intersex youth. "I was fascinated by the people and I met many young people and heard their stories," Puenzo said. "Many of them are sad, but I wanted to show the truth."

The story follows Alex, played by young actress Ines Efron, who is turning into a teenager and is brought up as a girl. She not only has attractions with her best female friend, but she also likes the boys. Her first sexual encounter is when topping a guy and her father walks in on them. Then, the boys in the town come to find Alex to see what's really down his/her pants. It's a brutal, yet strangely tender story about family and secrecy, and it gives an unvarnished look at the issues around intersex people.

Ines Efron in "XXY"

A few other films that cropped up with minor bi moments are:

• "Nothing is Private" is gay screenwriter Alan Ball's feature film debut as a director of a 1970s period film of a young Iranian-American girl who fantasizes about kissing Playboy bunny models and is molested by a creep redneck neighbor.
• "A Jihad for Love" a groundbreaking film about Muslin gay life.
• "Mister Lonely" follows a Michael Jackson impersonator to a castle on a lake where other impersonators all live together.
• "Hollywood Chinese" is Arthur Dong's gripping documentary about Asian movie influence, including some bi characters.
• Openly gay directors such as Francois Ozon's "Angel," Gregg Araki's "Smiley Face" and Gus Van Sant's "Paranoid Park" also have a few bi moments.

Next time, I'll talk about my favorite movie of the festival, with two of my favorite actors, Jude Law and Michael Caine in "Sleuth."