Photo By Steve Ramos

Director Cate Shortland, left, and actors Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington are the trio behind Somersault, a discovery at the Toronto Film Festival.

Back home on her office bookshelf, Helen Hunt has a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the film As Good As it Gets, as well as countless trophies for her work on the popular TV sitcom, Mad About You. Hunt has already achieved so much in her acting career, which means she's looking for a rediscovery, a chance to show movie audiences and herself a role nobody has seen from her before. It's time, Hunt's convinced, to put on period clothes and enter movie territory dominated by Gwyneth Paltrow and Helena Bonham Carter.

In director Mike Barker's period drama A Good Woman, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play, Lady Windermere's Fan, set in 1930s New York City and Italy's Amalfi Coast, Hunt plays Mrs. Erlynne, an infamous mistress of wealthy men. After leaving New York City for Italy, Mrs. Erlynne sets her sights on Robert Windermere (Mark Umbers), newlywed husband of pretty, naíve Meg Windemere (Scarlett Johansson). Erlynne is clearly after Windermere's money, although there is more to her plotting than meets the eye.

Hunt makes the most of her character's period gowns and curly hairstyle. Paired with rising star Johansson, Hunt brings the costume drama a celebrity punch.

The debut screening for A Good Woman occurs just two days prior to the finish of the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival, long after many members of the film industry have left town. But the early afternoon screening is packed, with some distribution reps reportedly coming to Toronto specifically for the chance to watch and bid on the film. The chance to watch Hunt in an intimate costume drama makes A Good Woman a hot commodity in the world of distribution deals.

Later that same afternoon, a couple of blocks from the screening at a Toronto hotel, Hunt laughs when asked what it's like to play an older woman.

"Older than who?" she says. "Sadly, I don't think I'm playing anyone older than myself."

Hunt says she embraced the fact that Erlynne is a middle-aged woman who has already lived a full life, revealing a beautiful face with believable creases and wrinkles intact.

"It's a good part," she continues. "Like most actors, I will sacrifice vanity for only one thing -- a really good part."

The core, driving theme regarding film festivals for critics and audiences alike is discovery -- or rediscovery with regards to familiar faces like Helen Hunt.

The 2004 Toronto International Film Festival might be as sprawling as film festivals come, with over 300 films covering every genre and every territory of the world. Yet that core goal, discovering something new and good, remains the same over the Toronto festival's 10 days.

Distribution deals are more difficult to track, but the press dance between actors and directors hoping to promote their features revolves around the courtyard of the Inter-Continental hotel, the unofficial festival headquarters for interviews.

There are moments, especially early in the week, when almost every festival actor appeared to squeeze into the hotel's paneled bar and adjacent, outdoors dining area. Kevin Spacey promotes his Bobby Darin drama, Beyond the Sea, sitting a few feet away from actresses Joan Allen, and Laura Linney, all there to promote their own respective films. Watching the chaos is maverick director John Waters, in Toronto to support his latest comedy, A Dirty Shame.

Toronto audiences, whose love for movies is an important festival asset, respond with unbridled enthusiasm when they watch something they like.

For audiences, discovery is attending the first public screening of Somersault from Australia the night prior to the festival's conclusion and witnessing a film that tackles a young woman's journey with the verve of Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar and the lush romance of Olivier Assayas' wayward lovers drama, Cold Water.

Heidi (Abbie Cornish) is a 16-year-old Australian girl who uses her sexuality to build relationships. She gets into bed with her mother's boyfriend, but flees in embarrassment when caught. On her own, Heidi heads to the ski town of Lake Jindabyne, hoping to reconnect with a past acquaintance.

While there, she meets Joe (Sam Worthington), the son of a local farmer. Heidi and Joe first hook up at a local bar out of physical attraction, but something more develops from their liaison. They are both unsure about themselves, and together they might find some answers.

The type of discovery that makes the dizzy pace of film festivals worthwhile is watching actress Abbie Cornish, who's dynamic and utterly convincing as Heidi, a flawed teenage girl desperate to be loved and to love herself. Actor Sam Worthington is complex and believable as Joe, someone who is as confused as Heidi and desperate for a firmer sense of self.

Somersault is director Cate Shortland's first feature after four short films and episodes of a TV series, The Secret Life of Us, in her native Australia. She has worked on developing Somersault over the past seven years, doing everything an aspiring filmmaker is supposed to do to prepare for a directing career -- studying at college (Sydney University) and later the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. But the future of Somersault, at least regarding U.S. audiences, comes down to the film's reception during the Toronto festival's final weekend.

It's the second to last evening of the festival and many people have left earlier in the week, but the Victoria University auditorium is full for Friday night's Somersault screening, and the response is enthusiastic. But is it enthusiastic enough for a distributor to buy the film's U.S. rights? That's the question for Shortland and her young lead actors the following morning, the last day of the festival, at Toronto's Inter-Continental Hotel.

Told that earlier in the week, it was difficult to hear anyone talk inside the hotel bar, Abbie Cornish acts excited. She is desperate to hear how the other half, the celebrity half of the festival works.

This morning, the Somersault gang has the barroom to themselves for a handful of interviews and photographs. The hectic festival atmosphere might be gone, but the very reason for having it remains. In terms of creating new discoveries, Shortland's hard work has paid off.

"Somersault opened in Sydney this weekend, but my distributor is too superstitious to tell me how it's doing," Shortland says. "I also can't say anything about any festival deals except I'm confident it will be seen in the U.S."

In a rare quiet moment, perhaps the first quiet moment at the hotel, Shortland bristles at hearing her film described as a melodrama.

"People don't usually use the word melodrama in a good way, do they?" she asks. "But when I think of melodrama I think of Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. I don't see Heidi as a flawed character that becomes better. She has problems, but we all have problems, which is why I think people relate with her."

Without other pending interview commitments to pull them away and the hotel barroom empty except for them, Shortland, Cornish and Worthington sit back and spend the morning talking about the film.

The one-time joy of being a film festival discovery is the freedom to talk without being pulled in a million directions at once. For Shortland and her young Somersault stars, that limelight experience could come another time. ©