Following an anaemic first few days at Toronto the domestic acquisitions scene finally showed signs of life as Overture Films took North American rights to Thomas McCarthy's crowd-pleaser The Visitor, Warner Independent Pictures and Red Envelope jointly took North America and other territories on Alan Ball's Nothing Is Private and The Weinstein Company bought North America and Mexico on George A Romero's Diary Of The Dead.

Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett pursued The Visitor immediately after its world premiere and finally sealed North American rights in the
early hours of Tuesday morning in a deal believed to be valued at just under $2m.

According to sources close to the deal, Participant Films and Groundswell Productions were particularly impressed by Overture's
passion and its marketing and distribution strategy. Overture's ancillary platform set-up through its intimate relationship with
Liberty Media was also a factor.

Overture executives declined to say when they aimed to release the film, which is the first production from Michael London's Groundswell
Productions and stars Richard Jenkins and Hiam Abbass.

The acquisitions raises Overture's line-up to seven. The romantic comedy Last Chance Harvey is due to commence production in London on Oct 1 and stars Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. The CIA thriller Traitor with Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce began principal photography on Toronto this week.

The Visitor was produced by Mary Jane Skalski and Michael London, and stars Richard Jenkins as a widower who forms a friendship with a pair of illegal squatters. Andrew Hurwitz negotiated for the film-makers.

Nothing Is Private marks American Beauty writer Alan Ball's first feature as director and stars Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Summer
Bishil, and Peter Macdissi.

The deal was closed by WiP senior vice president of production and acquisitions Paul Federbush and director of acquisitions Carl Hampe with Richard Klubeck and Andrew Cannava from UTA on behalf of the film-makers.

On Diary Of The Dead, Barry Gordon and Michal Podell negotiated for TWC with Dan Steinman for Cinetic Media.

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