Toronto market brimming with recent sales

'Creation,' 'Chloe' and 'Get Low' among sales of TIFF titles

By Etan Vlessing

Oct 19, 2009, 01:17 PM ET

TORONTO -- If the Toronto International Film Festival is nervous about its prospects as a film market while studios and indie producers struggle, it's not showing it.

"It's encouraging for all of us in the industry to see that sales continue in a tough marketplace," festival co-director Cameron Bailey said Monday as he touted recent U.S. sales for TIFF titles such as festival opener "Creation" from Jon Amiel, Atom Egoyan's "Chloe," the Robert Duvall starrer "Get Low," Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Micmacs," and Tom Ford's "A Single Man."

With cost-conscious U.S. specialty distributors in no hurry to make snap decisions, Toronto titles awaiting AFM for possible domestic pickups include Demi Moore/David Duchovny pic "The Joneses," Ruba Nadda's "Cairo Time," "George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead," Danis Tanovic's "Triage," Rodrigo Garcia's adoption drama "Mother and Child," which closed the San Sebastian Film Festival and J. Blakeson's kidnapping thriller "The Disappearance of Alice Creed."

Toronto, which has long doubled as a film market and a launchpad for fall titles, was last month blind-sided as a host of films, many with A-list directors and actors, arrived at the festival in search of buyers during an increasingly tight market for indie pics.

Bidding wars never emerged, and seven-figure deals were hard to come by.

Other Toronto world premiere features still without U.S. distribution rights include Neil Jordan's mermaid pic "Ondine," starring Colin Farrell, the Michael Douglas starrer "Solitary Man" and Bruce Beresford's "Mao's Last Dancer," which stars Joan Chen.

Toronto market brimming with recent sales

'Creation,' 'Chloe' and 'Get Low' among sales of TIFF titles

By Etan Vlessing

Oct 19, 2009, 01:17 PM ET