Yesterday, we reported that The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer‘s Cloud Atlas would be part of this year’s excellent line-up for the Toronto International Film Festival. We had seen some concept art of Seoul in the year 2144 and behind-the-scenes photos, but now we have the first look at stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, and Jim Broadbent as a few of the multiple characters they’ll play in the movie. The ambitious project, which also includes Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, James D’Arcy, Jim Sturgess, and Susan Sarandon, spans multiple eras with the cast playing different characters in each era. For example, Berry said she’s playing a Jewish woman in the 1930s and an old tribal woman, and Grant revealed he’s playing six “incredibly evil” characters.

Hit the jump to check out the images and to learn more about the film. The 2012 Toronto Film Festival runs from September 6 – 16th. Cloud Atlas opens October 26th. [Update: Check out 20 new images after the jump.]

Images via EW and Facebook:

In this image, Hanks is playing “a man who meets an emissary from an advanced civilization (Berry).”

This image is from “a darkly comic yarn about a composer (Broadbent) and his apprentice (Whishaw).”

[Update: Check out a slideshow of the new images below, followed by the still images.]

Here’s the synopsis for the novel: