The dust has barely settled on the inaugural TIFF: The Market (September 10-16) yet buyers and sellers from the UK and US who travelled to Toronto have weighed in with mixed initial impressions.
More than a dozen participants who spoke to Screen expressed a range of opinions, reflecting the nuance of a super-charged offering where attendees targeted specific goals and focused either on the TIFF festival (September 10-20), TIFF’s new market, or a combination of the two.
There were sales executives who reported robust trade on available festival selections and in some cases market sales titles, although these were relatively thin on the ground compared to Cannes and, in all likelihood, the upcoming American Film Market in Los Angeles (AFM, November 10-16).
Others were unable to pull a package together, or preferred to channel their activities into selling a festival selection, continuing talks on outstanding territories on packages and completed films, or simply catch up with their buyers in the run-up to AFM.
Many top tier sellers from the US and UK took offices outside the official market footprint of the convention centre and affiliated Intercontinental and Ritz-Carlton hotels, preferring to stay at places like Soho Hotel or run meetings out of Soho House, as they have done in the past. By the end of the market many were unconvinced they would change their approach in 2027 and beyond, but were willing to remain open-eyed.
On the festival domestic acquisitions front, where only one major sale had closed at time of writing, US buyers said acquisition titles at the 51st edition of TIFF were less commercial than usual. Yet they expected negotiations to continue in the coming weeks and months, in keeping with the slower cadence of post-Covid deal-making.
There was near unanimity among attendees that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the TIFF: The Market hub housing dozens of stands and booths, the speaker summit and Innovation Hub, among other events, was a work in progress. On most days there was activity in the large hall where the stands and booths were situated but it was never truly humming, and by the afternoon the crowds dwindled to less than half-full. The exception was the Canadian umbrella stand and surrounding company booths, which appeared to be at capacity the entire time.
Most delegates either had personal experience of or had heard about the long lines to pick up accreditation badges, where according to multiple sources some people waited for more than four hours as staff wrestled with the volume of arrivals and a non-functioning printer.
TIFF: The Market acknowledged the lines on opening day and said staff were “working around the clock to resolve this situation”. Volunteers walked down the lines advising delegates they could download a digital pass from the official app that would grant full access to market venues and screenings. Patient attendees spoke generously of “growing pains”, and by the end of opening day and certainly by Friday (September 11) the backlog appeared to be under control.
Backed by US $16.5m (C$23m) in Canadian federal funding over three years and supported by Telefilm Canada, there is a lot riding on the market. TIFF: The Market head Charles Tremblay said on Friday (September 18) that there were more than 116,000 attendees at market events, more than 7,000 registered delegates against a targeted 6,000, noting “key metrics surpassed”. Tremblay said, “We’re grateful for the support we received from all levels of the global industry and for the opportunity to learn from the elements that can be improved.”
Sellers report
Fabien Westerhoff – managing director of the theatrical film division at Global Constellation, booked a space at the “pleasantly lit” convention centre at the Unifrance umbrella stand which he said that was “helpful for our junior salesperson to meet new people and benefit from the stand’s foot traffic”. Westerhoff and his head of sales mostly based themselves at Le Germain Hotel and Scotiabank where the majority of the newly-titled press and market screenings took place – TIFF Lightbox and a handful of screens at the convention centre being the other P&M venues.
“We had a strong TIFF with three premieres in Platform, Discovery and Centerpiece, coming out of two premieres in Venice and some market exclusives such as Jordan Firstman’s US version of Jim Queen,” Westerhoff said. “Buyer attendance was good, as well as press coverage, so we’ll be coming home with good deal flow across the slate.” He added, “We’ll be back next year and will most likely keep the shared umbrella stand option, as we did in the past with the UK umbrella.” The impact of a festival premiere in front of a packed house of public and industry delegates is one of TIFF’s superpowers and Global Constellation’s sales slate included Shalini Adnani’s recent Venice premiere Our Share Of Sand.
FilmNation founder and CEO Glen Basner remained off site as he and many of the top tier US sales agencies have done over the years in Toronto and engaged with buyers on the sales package Honeymoon Funeral, MRC’s queer romantic comedy starring Rebecca Ferguson and Greta Lee that has been filming in London. Basner also showed footage from another MRC project, the Bill Hader-directed horror They Know.
“We found this year’s festival and market to be highly productive with both new sales and important discussions to prepare for our upcoming releases this calendar year,” Basner said. “It was a great way to start the autumn release season.” FilmNation sales titles in selection included the North American premiere of Florian Zeller’s Venice world premiere Bunker starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, and Peter Farrelly’s TIFF world premiere I Play Rocky led by Anthony Ippolito.
Voltage Pictures CEO Nicolas Chartier also remained off site and reported strong response to his major sales title. “TIFF went well,” he said. “We had a great rom-com I Wish I Never Had Sex With Him with Madelaine Petsch, which sold well internationally, so it was productive.”
A24 screened a trio of hot market titles for international buyers only: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary and Telluride surprise screening sensation You Can See Everything, about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes; Molly Gordon’s comedy Peaked, and sci-fi Hotel Hotel Hotel from Together director Michael Shanks.
Kaleidoscope CEO Spencer Pollard attended with the world premiere of John Madden’s Gala Presentations drama Onwards And Sideways with Rhys Ifans and Laura Linney. “We expect to close significant territories during TIFF and next week too,” Pollard said. “It’s been a real team effort and a special film is receiving the love we could only have dreamt of.”
Pollard’s team took up positions at the UK umbrella stand at Hyatt Regency Toronto and a pod at the convention centre. “By being in both spaces we were able to cover all angles and as usual the UK stand at the Hyatt was an excellent meeting place,” Pollard said. “The convention centre left a lot to be desired – too many mentions of badges not being printed, queues being too long, coffee running out and the signage for our pod being non-existent with volunteers having no idea where our pod was when asked for directions […] We will be back next year, but I doubt in the same way.”
AGC Studios co-heads of worldwide sales and distribution Diane Ferrandez and Nat McCormick reported robust major territory sales on Lauren Miller Rogen’s comedy Babies, which stars Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen and received its world premiere in Gala Presentations, and showed first footage from Russell Crowe action drama The Last Druid.
“There was a good flow of people,” McCormick said of the company’s offices at the Intercontinental, one of two hotels affiliated to the market in addition to the nearby Ritz-Carlton. We were busy and had a big office. There were a lot of buyers.” Being situated on the 18th floor adjacent to other sales companies created extra foot traffic.
“TIFF is a good place to catch up with partners and start to set up for AFM,” Ferrandez said. “We’re in conversations with everybody all year round. Toronto is a great launch platforms for new packages and for when you have films in selection.”
Like a lot of the attending sales companies, AGC Studios did not bring a new package. The challenge of setting up full packages after the August holiday month when Europe logs off and it becomes hard to capture the attention of talent is one of the drawbacks of an official September market in Toronto that cited by sales executives often cite. Many said while they saw value in attending Toronto and screening films, they needed more time to take a view on the utility of an official TIFF market so soon before AFM.
Manifest Pictures co-founder Zach Glueck did not bring a new package and caught up with his network of buyers ahead of the AFM and screened films. “No sales agent has avoided treating Toronto as a market because it didn’t have the infrastructure to be a market,” Glueck said. ”It is simply that we are we are bound by what we can put together in time and if you put something together in time, it is probably one of the best places possible to launch a film.”
This year most festival selections were allocated only one P&M slot to accommodate the greater number of market screenings. TIFF: The Market said a film could get more P&M slots if there were significant demand, and while this happened on several occasions, sellers viewed the new arrangement with caution and noted that buyers with packed schedules might not be able to accommodate a new slot.
“We will continue to engage with Toronto exactly as we’ve always engaged with it,” said one US-based sales executive who asked not to be named. “I do not think that we will engage any further with the market arm of it until there is an offering that changes the situation that we’ve already had from the de facto shadow market of the last 15 years.”
Slow pace of festival acquisitions
At time of writing there had been one headline sale, and it was an unusual one as Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster paid more than $10m for US rights and select territories on Josh Guiliano’s Midnight Madness entry River. Independent Film Company and Shudder entered TIFF with US rights to the film and will have found the deal sum hard to resist. Upgrade represents international sales. Roshan Sethi’s Centrepiece action film The Surgeon starring Michelle Yeoh was also attracting interest, although Netflix, Warner Bros and Paramount were not pursuing it.
Curzon head of acquisitions Eleonora Pesci said that while the availability of projects and packages was “quite slight, in terms of new things being launched”, she felt energised by her meetings. “This year it felt more dynamic. Definitely more conversations about potentially acquiring some titles,” she said. “Things felt a bit more active. I don’t know if it’s a reflection of TIFF itself, or just how the market is changing… Things felt a bit buzzier, it was encouraging in that sense. Definitely something to keep attending next year.”
With regard to packaging projects for TIFF Pesci noted, “It’s too soon after the summer holidays. On the festival selection side, a lot of things were already sold for the UK.”
Richard Lorber of Kino Lorber has pending offers on three or four TIFF films and was circling another half a dozen. “Toronto is always differently overwhelming than Cannes,” Lorber said. “Its depth and variety without the French curatorial domination and competition anxiety of Croisette offerings is a democratic relief, but no less intense and more so with all the films more or less on the same footing […] Not the strongest line up in years but plenty for us to test working with given the changing dynamics of the industry.”
Tremblay and his TIFF: The Market team said meetings, summit, Innovation Hub, creative development programmes, IP Exchange and International Financing & Project Market produced a 40% increase in registered delegates compared to prior years, which typically drew 5,000 people to the city. There were 7,010 delegates from 92 countries; 238 exhibitors on the exhibition floor; and 1,473 buyers in meetings and 196 market screenings as buyer attendance increased by 19% from 2025.
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