Vancouver’s Red Sky Entertainment has 14 titles on the program for the Toronto International Film Festival, a substantial feat when the distribution company is not yet one year old.

‘We’re very excited by the number of our films showing at the festival and that some are presented as galas,’ says Red Sky president Tony Cianciotta, who will attend tiff with business partners Mary-Pat Gleeson, Dave Forget and Anna Maria Muccilli.

Rupert’s Land, for example, will have its world premiere in Toronto. A road movie produced by Vancouver’s Cadence Entertainment, Rupert’s Land is about two estranged brothers who reunite for their father’s funeral.

Red Sky, meanwhile, owns the Canadian rights to director Marc Levin’s rap-inspired Slam (which opens the Planet Africa program), Master Program participant Tu Ridi (You’re Laughing) by Italy’s Taviano brothers and Love is the Devil, the Derek Jacobi vehicle about art star Francis Bacon.

While Red Sky will be at the Toronto festival to drum up publicity for its participating titles, the distributor’s representatives will also be shopping for new titles, paying anywhere from $20,000 to $250,000 for Canadian box office, television and video rights.

Cianciotta says Canadian audiences want high-end art films such as Secrets & Lies and Il Postino, and Red Sky is looking for properties that will be able to carry two to four or more screens in any one major Canadian city.

Red Sky was formed in October during the last Vancouver International Film Festival after the four principals left their posts with Alliance Releasing in Toronto to pioneer a new distribution enterprise on the West Coast. Currently, the company has 35 titles in its inventory including Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, which is in Canadian theaters now.