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When screenwriter/director Paul Haggis, who was born and raised in Anglo Canada, saw the film Pour Elle , a taut French thriller about a schoolteacher imprisoned for a murder she says she didn't commit, he had one reaction – besides wanting to remake it in English: “I could do it darker, and with more complexity of character.”

That is what the Oscar winner, who describes himself as a cynic, hopes to have accomplished in his English version of the film, now called The Next Three Days and in pre-production in Pennsylvania starring Russell Crowe as the Everyman who tries to spring his wife from jail.

“It's the same thing as when I took on James Bond,” he says, laughing, on the phone from Pennsylvania earlier this week before coming to the Toronto International Film Festival for a charity event Friday night. To explain, he refers to how, in rewriting the screenplay for 2006's Casino Royale, he succeeded in darkening 007's soul (and gave the Bond franchise a boost).

Call it the Haggis style – the art of imbuing entertainment with a more revolutionary, if not philosophical, spirit.

It's an approach polished over a 35-year career that until fairly recently unfolded beyond the scrutiny of fame, the 56-year old London, Ont., native having toiled mostly behind the scenes as a TV writer on such shows as One Day at a Time and Walker, Texas Ranger.

That all changed, of course, when he became the first screenwriter since 1950 to write best-film Oscar winners back to back – Million Dollar Baby in 2005 and Crash in 2006.

But while the once-divorced, twice-married father of four is now a celebrity in his own right, Haggis says that fundamentally he remains the same: “I still have a wizened, dark little soul, and I like people with big ones.”

People with big souls, he means, like Rick Frechette, the American-born Roman Catholic priest with whom Haggis lived in the slums of Port-au-Prince for several weeks last year. There, surrounded by some of the world's poorest people, Haggis found his world view irrevocably challenged.

In Haiti, he expected to see darkness. “I was surprised by the amount of joy, and by the fact that I kept waking up with a smile on my face and it didn't leave,” he says. “It's a land of complete contradictions.”

Its paradoxes made Haiti appeal to him as a filmmaker. “I don't think I ever think of anything as commercial,” Haggis says. “My impulse is to do things about people and issues that move me. That's what my filmmaking is about, and it's also what my involvement in Haiti is about. They're both about the same unanswerable questions.”

In part to address these questions Haggis has harnessed his fame with the intention of making a difference, not just in the cinema, but in Haiti: “You have to be an artist to even exist there, you have to be creative about just how you are going to survive your day,” he says.

He recently founded the U.S.-based Artists for Peace and Justice, a celebrity-laden charity whose board also includes James Franco, Oliver Stone, Charlize Theron, Josh Brolin, Diane Lane and Maria Bello. Its immediate goal is to raise $300,000 to support a series of street schools for 3,500 poverty-stricken Haitian children, overseen by Frechette as part of his Friends of the Orphans mission.

While he hopes his film The Next Three Days will debut at next year's TIFF, Haggis arrived in Toronto primarily to launch Friday night's inaugural event for Artists for Peace and Justice at the Windsor Arms. Hotel owner George Friedmann donated the venue for the night to help Haggis reach his fundraising goal.

The numbers aren't in yet, but the Windsor Arms Hotel was packed to capacity Friday night, with more than 400 guests squeezing into the main floor to bid on a variety of live auction items – including a walk-on role in The Next Three Days that sold for $12,000. Irish actor Colin Farrell, Canada's Kim Cattrall and actress Kelly Rowan, all joined Haggis on a red carpet designed by New York artist Peter Tunney, which was created by celebrities walking on it after dipping their bare feet in vats of crimson paint. Intended to show how people can make a difference for the children of Haiti – one step at a time – the art work was later auctioned off. Windsor Arms Hotel owner George Friedman bought the piece for $10,000.

“[The school] is where the kids often get their only food in a day, as each child gets a hot meal at lunch,” says Haggis. “It's where they get their clothing in the form of a school uniform and they get their education.”

However, Haggis denies he's gone spiritual all of a sudden, just because he is spending a lot of time with a priest.

“Rick is trying to convince me that I'm not an atheist,” Haggis says. “It's funny, really. We have a bottle of wine and we talk, and I always tell him, we'll see.”