After a cautious start sorely lacking in buzz and domestic deal-making, TIFF sprang into life yesterday as Fox Searchlight paid $4m for US rights to Darren Aronofsky's Venice Golden Lion winner The Wrestler.

Searchlight beat out bids from Lionsgate, Sony and Overture Films before it closed the deal with CAA in mid-morning following a marathon negotiating session after Sunday's North American premiere.

Meanwhile Josh Braun's Submarine is considering two offers on the R&B concert documentary Soul Power and expects a deal to close by the end of the week. Braun also reported strong interest on Participant and River Road's food industry documentary Food, Inc.

Last night's anticipated North American premiere of Kathryn Bigelow's war film The Hurt Locker was expected to draw heavy interest. Also in play at time of writing were the documentaries More Than A Game and Every Little Step, as well as the Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Management, Richard Linklater's Me And Orson Welles, Ramin Bahrani's Goodbye Solo and John Crowley's Is There Anybody There'

Magnolia Pictures was understood to be finalising a North American deal with Wild Bunch on Steven Soderbergh's Che though the distributor had not confirmed this. Fox International released The Argentine in Spain over the weekend, where it opened at number one and grossed $2.7m from 336 screens.

Other deals announced yesterday:
- Celluloid Dreams sold Hirokazu Kore-eda's Still Walking to Pyramide in France, Trigon in Switzerland and Folkets Bio in Sweden. Doumentary Valentino: The Last Emperor went to Hopscotch in Australia.
- The Little Film Company closed deals on Anthony Fabian's South African apartheid drama Skin with UGC in France, European Film Partners in Benelux, Nordisk in Scandinavia, Spentzos Film in Greece and Front Row in the Middle East.
- Image Entertainment has picked up all non-theatrical US rights to John Maybury's The Edge Of Love from CT1 Holdings.
- Wolfe Releasing picked up US rights to Tom Gustafson's fantasy adventure Were The World Mine and Chris Mason Johnson's relationship drama The New Twenty and will also release on DVD through Wolfe Video.