Wikileaks film starring Benedict Cumberbatch to premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2013

Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange in 'The Fifth Estate'

Benedict Cumberbatch's new movie, in which he portrays WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is among an array of films featuring British stars to receive their world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this summer.

The Sherlock actor stars as Assange in The Fifth Estate which also features Peter Capaldi as The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens and Harry Potter star David Thewlis. It will open the prestigious film festival in Canada on 5 September.

Cumberbatch also stars in two other films which will have their first screenings at TIFF - Steve McQueen's highly anticipated 12 Years A Slave, co-starring Michael Fassbender, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Brad Pitt and John Wells' adaptation of August: Osage County with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts.

Also to premiere at Toronto is the Nelson Mandela biopic Long Walk to Freedom starring Brits Idris Elba and Naomie Harris and Second World War prisoner drama The Railway Man, starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.

One Chance, the film about the first ever Britain's Got Talent winner Paul Potts, starring James Corden, Julie Walters and Mackenzie Crook, will also be screened for the first time.

Other world premieres include romantic comedy The Love Punch starring Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan, director Richard Ayoade's new film The Double, with Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska and crime thriller Dom Hemingway starring Jude Law and Richard E Grant.

The Invisible Woman, the story of Charles Dickens's mistress Nelly Ternan, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes, with Felicity Jones as Ternan, will also make its world debut at the festival.

Other films screening at the festival include Kill Your Darlings, featuring Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe as Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and political comedy The Grand Seduction, starring Brendan Gleeson and Taylor Kitsch.

The 38th Toronto Film Festival will close on 15 September with the premier of Life of Crime, based on Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch, with an all-star cast including Jennifer Aniston, John Hawkes, Mos Def, Isla Fisher and Tim Robbins.

PA