Boyle comes to rescue of filmmaker Canet

English director Danny Boyle came to the rescue of French filmmaker Guillaume Canet at the Toronto film festival over the weekend, offering up a theatre to show Canet's new film when glitches forced him out of another.

Canet had arrived in Toronto Saturday for the world premiere of his new French-language film "Little White Lies" ("Les Petits Mouchoirs") only to learn that the projector at the festival's gala venue Roy Thompson Hall could not show English subtitles, "which is a problem for an international film festival," Canet said.

Boyle ("Trainspotting," "Slumdog Millionaire") stepped in at the last minute, offering to move the screening of his new film "127 Hours" to a smaller venue and allow Canet to premiere "Little White Lies" with subtitles in his spot.

Canet and his audience trekked several blocks to the Scotiabank multiplex in downtown Toronto, while the audience for "127 Hours" was asked to wait 90 minutes for a high-definition projector to be installed at another, smaller theatre.

"I was depressed and just before I killed myself, (festival organizers) proposed going to another theatre," said Canet. "Thanks to Danny Boyle who was so kind to leave us his theatre, we were able to screen the film."

"The audience was wonderful because they all followed us in the street to the other theatre. There was a big march in Toronto," he said.

"It was very depressing at the beginning and very exciting at the end."

Boyle commented Sunday: "You can't get too uptight about things like that. It's an amazing festival."

He apologized to his audience for the "minor inconvenience."

"You just hope that it doesn't spoil peoples' enjoyment of the film or ruin peoples' schedule," he said.

Boyle said he knew Canet, having worked with him previously. "He's a very good director," he said.

Canet ("Mon idole" and "Ne le dis a personnne") assembled some of France's finest actors - including Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard ("La vie en rose"), Francois Cluzet, Benoit Magimel, Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche and Laurent Lafitte - for his latest film exploring friendship, raging hormones and frustrations during a trip to a beach house.

Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" was awarded the audience prize for best motion picture at the Toronto film festival in 2008. It went on to become a runaway success at that year's Oscars.

The director returned this year with a film chronicling the true story of American outdoorsman Aron Ralston who became trapped when his right hand was crushed by a boulder during a weekend excursion to the arid desert and canyons of Utah.

Over six days, Ralston tried with his left hand and a system of climbing pulleys to pry himself free, as his mind drifted to memories and fantasies of escape, recorded on a camcorder he brought with him.

The film stars James Franco ("Eat, Pray, Love," "Milk" and "Spider-Man") as Ralston, as well as Amber Tamblyn ("The Grudge 2"), Kate Mara ("Iron Man 2"), and Clemence Poesy ("In Bruges," "Harry Potter").

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