MUMBAI: The Toronto International Film Festival opened with a British film Creation.

For more than three decades, the Toronto film festival usually opened with a Canadian movie to spotlight the industry within the country. Naturally, its choice of Charles Darwin drama Creation drew ire of local filmmakers.

But the controversy seemed fitting to festival organizers because the film looks at evolutionist Darwin‘s life as he struggles to write his seminal book, ‘On the Origin of Species‘ that inspires debate even today.

Creation stars Paul Bettany as the man whose theory of natural selection gave rise to the idea that humans evolved from a lower order of beings and were not created by God. The story takes place when Darwin is in his mid-40‘s, after he traveled the world exploring and collecting samples of animal life.