Brace yourselves, ladies, for the second half of the world-famous Jolie-Pitt duo may be coming to Toronto this fall.

Brad Pitt -- People magazine's most beautiful man, as well as part of the world's most beautiful family, with Angelina Jolie -- is in negotiations with organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to attend a special presentation of Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's solemnly gripping Babel. The film garnered Inarritu the best-director prize at the Cannes International Film Festival this spring.

TIFF won't know until the end of August if the 42-year-old actor will attend the North American premiere. But one seasoned festival organizer noted yesterday that special-presentation programs "tend to attract the big-name stars."

Women across the country will be keeping their fingers crossed.

Inarritu's feature film is one of 26 international titles that TIFF announced will be coming to the 31st Toronto festival, including the Cannes Palme d'or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a story about Ireland's bid for independence and civil war in the 1920s from director Ken Loach.

Of the 26 international entries, 25 are North American premieres.

Reached yesterday in Paris, festival co-director Noah Cowan said Babel and The Wind That Shakes the Barley "were certainly among the best films at Cannes this year. They both speak to humanity's uglier side and the inhuman acts that so often characterize us, but with two radically different formal and political strategies."

Pitt, whom Newsweek chose earlier this week as one of "15 People Who Make America Great" because of his and Jolie's humanitarian efforts in Africa, is part of an ensemble cast in Babel that includes Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal and Koji Yakusho. It's a film that bounces back and forth across the globe, through two time frames, three linked stories and a babel of languages: English, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese and Japanese sign language. Expected to reach Canadian theatres in October, it was written by Guillermo Arriaga, who had worked with Inarritu on the director's two previous films, 21 Grams and Amores Perros.

Pitt did not attend the movie's world premiere in May in Cannes because partner Jolie was about to give birth to the couple's child. "With the imminent arrival of the newest addition to our family, I am unable to join Alejandro, Cate, Gael and the rest of the cast and crew introducing the film," Pitt wrote to Cannes organizers in an e-mail. "I am tremendously proud of Babel and want to congratulate everyone involved for this great achievement."

A few days later, their daughter Shiloh was born. The couple also have two adopted children, Maddox and Zahara.

Cowan would not shed any light on the status of negotiations with Pitt's people, adding, "as always we'll announce all guests at our launch press conference in August. We don't want to disappoint our audiences, so until then we can't make any guest announcements just yet."

Also in TIFF's international lineup, and included in the Masters program, are the North American premieres of Nanni Moretti's The Caiman, the story of a down-and-out movie producer who dives headfirst into a film on former Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, and Aki Kaurismaki's Lights in the Dusk, the final film in a trilogy focused on social problems facing Finland and its people.

Real to Reel features documentaries such as Tahani Rached's These Girls, which chronicles the daily struggles of adolescent girls living in defiance of Egyptian social models on the streets of Cairo.

Discovery will offer films by new and emerging filmmakers, such as Sheng Zhimin's Bliss (one family's struggle amidst death, heartache, secrets and lies) and the first feature from Joachim Trier, Reprise, a comedic portrayal of two young men whose shared dream of becoming a writer is trampled upon by harsh reality.

Included in the Contemporary World Cinema program is Andrea Arnold's first feature Red Road, which took home the Jury Prize at Cannes, and Corneliu Porumboiu's debut feature 12:08 East of Bucharest, which won Cannes's Cam¨¦ra d'or.

Also receiving a North American premiere at this year's festival is Shortbus, the second feature from John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), which focuses on two characters who, for very different reasons, decide to explore the sexual prospects of open marriage.

Yesterday Cowan said TIFF is the only major festival in the world that shows films that have previously played at other festivals throughout its program. "This is part of the history of the festival. We started out as the 'Festival of Festivals.' Toronto is a public festival and we know our audiences may not have the luxury of being in Cannes or Berlin like we do. As the festival has grown, we have certainly secured our share of terrific films as world premieres, and I'm sure Toronto won't be disappointed this year."

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 7 to 16.