Toronto Kicks Off Battle of the Fall Film Markets

With the start of the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, the first shot has been fired in a battle for supremacy in the fall film markets. Toronto will officially launch its new market in 2026, with the help of an eight-figure sum from the Canadian government, and the ground is being laid to make TIFF a contender, perhaps even a replacement, for the current reigning fall champ, the American Film Market.

The AFM has looked wobbly and vulnerable since the closure of the Loews hotel in Santa Monica last year. The iconic Pacific-facing location had been home to the AFM since 1991, and AFM’s move up the hill to the Le Méridien Delfina for the 2023 market proved a disaster. Members of the hospitality workers union Unite Here Local 11 staged a noisy and disruptive protest outside the building, decrying what they said were unfair working conditions at the hotel. Inside, market attendees were frustrated by facilities not designed to accommodate hundreds of buyers and sellers moving in and out and through the building every day. AFM organizers, The Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), quickly dropped the idea of returning there this year. Instead, the AFM has pulled up stakes and moved to the Palm Casino Resort in Las Vegas for its 45th edition, set to take place Nov. 5-10.

“With the move to Vegas, AFM is in limbo a little bit, no one knows if it will work,” notes one international film sales exec, a 20-year film market veteran. “TIFF sees an opportunity to take AFM’s spot as the main film market for the fall.”

Toronto has long been a place to do business, with buyers and sellers setting up shop in the city’s downtown hotels and negotiating deals. Sony Pictures Classics kicked off the deal-making on the eve of TIFF 2024, with SPC nabbing key world rights to Laura Piani’s debut feature Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment Group and Roadside Attractions took U.S. rights to Dito Montiel-directed Riff Raff, and Amazon Prime Video snatched up all international rights, excluding Germany, for the sci-fi feature The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, and Himesh Patel, all ahead of their respective festival premieres.

In 2022, TIFF tested the waters for a formal market with its Industry Selects program, a series of screenings for films outside the festival’s official lineup where worldwide rights were available. While TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey insists the new Toronto market will not be in competition with the AFM — “I think the AFM leans toward a more purely commercial product; we have the sort of festival grade,” he told THR, adding there’s enough time “between Cannes and Toronto and between Toronto and the AFM” to allow companies to attend all three markets with new projects.

Sales companies are not so sure the expense of attending yet another film market is worth it.
Domestic summer theatrical revenue, at $3.67 billion according to Comscore estimates, was off 10 percent from last year, and independent hits have been few and far between, Neon’s Longlegs ($74 million domestic) and A24’s Civil War ($68 million) notwithstanding.

“The market for indie films is tough,” notes a London-based seller attending TIFF this year. “The streamers are pulling back, there are only a handful of independent distributors who can put up a real MG [minimum guarantee], so there’s not much wiggle room when it comes to costs.”

As TIFF moves toward a formal market, cost-conscious indie buyers and sellers are finding more casual ways to do business. The Venice Film Festival, which does not have a film market, saw several high-profile U.S. deals, with A24 picking up rights to Luca Guadagnino’s new film Queer, starring Daniel Craig, from CAA Media Finance, Netflix nabbing Angelina Jolie-starring Maria Callas biopic Maria from FilmNation and Metrograph Pictures acquiring Neo Sora’s narrative feature debut Happyend from Magnify.

“For us, Venice has become more like Toronto used to be,” says one European seller. “We’re taking meetings in our hotel, talking informally with our buyers and doing deals. All without spending money on a booth or a trans-Atlantic flight.”