FILMMAKER Ron Howard is best remembered for his memorable works on the big screen like ‘Apollo 13’ (1995), ‘Backdraft’ (1991), ‘Far and Away’ (1993), ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ (2000) and his Oscar winning film, ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (2001).

Howard also worked at the helm of Dan Brown/Robert Langdon film series that took off with The ‘Da Vinci Code’ (2006) followed by ‘Angels and Demons’ (2009) and ‘Inferno’ (2016).

Two prominent world premieres of Hollywood films have been given some of the most high-profile venues of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Recently, Howard worked on a period flick, ‘Eden,’ about a group of people in the 1930’s who attempt to create their own society in the Galapagos Islands.

Starring Jude Law as German philosopher Friedrich Ritter, Eden has a formidable trio of leading ladies – Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby and Ana de Armas.

Kirby, known for her roles in ‘The Crown’ and ‘Napoleon,’ essayed Dore Strauch, the love interest of the German philosopher.

The film finds the old Hollywood hand of the septuagenarian Howard coming into the TIFF and launching new fall films looking for distribution. That added dramatic portent to the premiere.

The period film, ‘Eden,’ follows a pair of high-minded Europeans, played by Law and Kirby, who seek a new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galapagos only to discover that hell has other people.

As they encounter island settlers, “nothing will test their mettle more than the challenge of co-existing with desperate neighbors capable of theft, deception and worse.”

Variety reported that Howard thanked his cast at the premiere for having “not only the capacity but creative courage to go to some of the places that the real people have gone in their lives.”

He called the film, that is based on real-life events, “beyond anything I’ve ever done. The choices the characters are compelled or forced to make are more complex than anything I’ve dealt with in the film.”

Eden is a story of eight idealistic Germans who moved to an uninhabited island in the Galapagos archipelago in the 1920s. Before departing, the settlers had little in common except the will to escape and start new life in an unspoiled paradise.

Although the backdrop of the film is Galapagos Island, ‘Eden’ was filmed in Queensland, Australia.

According to the Los Angeles Times, that was followed by the world premiere of Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel, ‘Nightbitch,’ about a disaffected stay-at-home mother who goes for a series of nighttime runs in which she begins to transform into a dog.

Heller is a versatile filmmaker capable of both unnerving ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl,’ as well as the generous and joyful ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,’ which lends this new project an air of unpredictable volatility.

Add in a greatly anticipated lead performance from Amy Adams and one can see why the festival might be willing to pin its fortunes on whether the film can grab audiences by the throat.

After nearly 30 years, Oscar-nominated collaborators are clearly contenders again.

Other world premieres over last weekend included a pair of starry romances – ‘On Swift Horses,’ starring Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar Jones, as well as ‘All of You,’ with Brett Goldstein and Imogen Potts.

There are also two directorial debuts by well-known cinematographers, boxing drama ‘The Fire Inside’ from cinematographer Rachel Morrison and Pedro Parramo from Rodrigo Prieto.

Meanwhile, the premiere of Howard’s survival thriller, ‘Eden,’ at the TIFF was interrupted by a medical emergency when a guest was carried out of the Roy Thomson Hall on a stretcher.

The lights were briefly turned on so the staff could attend to the incident, which took place in the orchestra section of the theater.