The phone lines and computers have been installed, posters touting possible indie breakout films have been plastered on the walls and PR material strewn about. Even the cappuccino machine has been fired up.

All that awaits another successful Rogers Industry Centre this year are sleep-deprived, delirious filmmakers and dark and crusty film buyers converging on the Park Hyatt to trade tales between screenings, and possibly do deals with one another.

For if the Toronto International Film Festival’s movie offerings are about pleasure, the Rogers Industry Centre is about power.

All the contradictions of the Toronto International Film Festival are wrapped into this industry hub: foreign filmmakers claiming love of craft and creative expression while doggedly on the trail of elusive American film buyers and a coveted U.S. distribution deal that could make all their recent sweat and sacrifices a distant memory.

Industry players and wannabees will fill the Ontario Media Development Corporation Sales Office, a message and information service for pass holders that aims at bringing together filmmakers, sales agents and buyers, or mingle in the Producers Lounge located atop the Manulife Centre.

The job of the Sales Office is to track which movies in Toronto – from Canadian and U.S. independent fare to international offerings – have territorial rights open to possible buyers before and during the 10-day festival.

To secure and distribute that information, the Sales Office maintains a Rights List, with film territory openings updated daily, and a Buyers List of names and contact points for buyers and sales agents in Toronto, as well as a message centre for pass holders.

Ever the matchmaker, the Rogers Industry Centre has industry consultants on hand to help filmmakers without sales agents also find their way to meetings with film buyers.

U.S. buyers in Toronto are especially on the hunt for breakout films from English-speaking markets like Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Also in town are a host of international buyers, some big, but most are small players with niche interests. European industry giants such as the European Film Programme and Unifrance place great store in Toronto as a festival to bring their films and possibly make world sales, and the Rogers Industry Centre is often the focus of their efforts here.

Even if their films do not get sold in Toronto, foreign sellers get invaluable feedback on how their offerings might be received in the North American market.

What’s more, though sales of non-English-language films into the U.S. market are a rare phenomenon, that doesn’t stop foreign directors each year flocking to the Rogers Industry Centre, hoping to follow in the steps of Pedro Almodovar, Marleen Gorris, Wong Kar-Wai, Krysztof Kieslowski, Nanni Moretti and other art-house heroes discovered by U.S. film buyers at TIFF.

Micro-meetings

Besides the high-profile seminars, the attraction of the Rogers Industry Centre is also found in micro-meetings sponsored by Telefilm Canada. The one-hour sessions give Canadian filmmakers and producers a quick study on global industry issues and access to international buyers, producers, programmers and directors.

Industry players already confirmed for the micro-meetings include Israeli producer Amy Israel of Blum Israel Productions, a former Miramax film buyer who retains a first-look deal with that studio; Eva Kolodner, VP development and production at Madstone Films; and Johanna Lunn Montgomery, the newly installed director of programming at the Independent Film Channel Canada, which is set for a splashy launch at this year’s festival.

Other participants in the micro-meetings are John Bard Manulis, CEO of Visionbox Media Group/ Visionbox Pictures, a digital producer; Nicole Guillemet, VP at the Sundance Institute and codirector of the Sundance Film Festival; Richard Abramowitz, a partner with Outrider Pictures; and Susan Wrubel, VP of acquisitions at Madstone, which produces movies shot digitally by first-time directors.

The Maverick filmmakers sessions at this year’s event will feature intimate, industry-only exchanges with Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas), Mira Nair (Kama Sutra), Peter Fonda, in Toronto with his rereleased feature The Hired Hand, and stylish Japanese directors Johnny To and Wai Ka Fai, filmmaking partners presenting their latest work, Full Time Killer.

Another highlight of the Rogers Industry Centre is the Telefilm Canada-sponsored ‘Pitch This’ session, in which six Canadian filmmakers step on stage and hopefully sell their movie ideas to an audience filled with international film buyers and other industry players.

As expected with a fictional project, actors and other film tropes are employed to win over potential financiers.

The prize: a cheque for $6,000 that will go towards the cost of attending international film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin and Venice to flog their film idea yet again.

Besides the entertainment value of pitch sessions, another use for them is showing Industry Centre delegates what works, and what does not, when touting movie ideas. As well, pitch sessions achieve in mere minutes what most filmmakers endure over the course of months, and even years: finding out whether their movie dreams have legs, and can secure financing from public or private-sector sources.

This year’s pitch finalist projects are Toronto-based Anthony Del Col’s Changing of the Guard; Carloyn Hay and Lila Rose’s Driving Wild, also from Toronto; Nova Scotia-based Terry Greenlaw and William D. MacGillivray’s Jack Meets The Cat!; Kate Hay’s Nut Runner and Chaz Thorne’s Poor Boy’s Game, both from Toronto; and Quebec director Lucie Tremblay’s Spicing up Sullivan.

Plenary sessions

The Rogers Industry Centre is also about plenary sessions that aim at informing attendees about the latest issues in global filmmaking.

The keynote speaker at this year’s event is James Newton Howard, the Oscar-nominated film composer (Mumford, Snow Falling on Cedars, Glengarry Glen Ross), who will be interviewed by Jon Burlingame, author of Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks.

As well, the OMDC’s Adam Ostry will moderate Cultural Policy: A Global Perspective, a session that brings together an international array of players, including Bonnie Richardson, VP of trade and federal affairs with Jack Valenti’s Motion Picture Association of America, and representatives from Canada, Germany, Korea and elsewhere.

Ostry explains that the two-hour session will provide a sounding board for possible public policies to ensure the survival of national cinema globally.

The session is timely as Heritage Minister Sheila Copps and Canada have been spearheading the introduction of an international cultural instrument to ensure regionally specific films can continue to be made worldwide, despite the gathering influence of Hollywood globally.

Other sessions on tap for the Rogers Industry Centre include Digital Radicals, examining the impact of digital technologies on content distribution, with Andrew Robbins, head of Miramax New Media, moderating. Other confirmed panelists include Toronto-based Nathan Gunn, CEO of Bitcasters, and Jason Roks, cofounder of Hotline and BXB.

Small Screen, Big Screen will take delegates to the crossroads of film and TV productions, where movie makers are increasingly looking to make TV movies and other product for the small screen as theatrical releases become ever-more elusive.

Here Canadian directors have much to learn from their European colleagues, who enjoy generous investments from indigenous networks looking for TV dramas and documentaries.

The last session is Ben-Hur Production Values on an ‘I Love Lucy’ Budget, a workshop on using digital techniques in traditional narrative filmmaking to raise production values. The workshop will feature digitally enhanced scenes, and will be led by Bob Munroe, president of C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, and Bill Buxton, chief scientist at Alias|Wavefront.

-www.rogersic.com