It has been said that everyone wants something for nothing, and nowhere is that more true than at a film festival. As buyers from home and abroad descend on the Toronto International Film Festival this week, many are reporting that, because of the increasingly harsh and unpredictable world market, they are shopping for increasingly obscure films by increasingly raw directors – hoping to luck out and buy the next breakaway hit-to-be, like Y Tu Mama Tambien or Monsoon Wedding, for a song.

‘As each year passes, there is pressure to be even more selective than the year before,’ says Troy Lum, one of two buyers flying in from Hopscotch Films in Australia, ‘whilst at the same time having to make faster acquisition decisions.’

Hopscotch is shopping for titles that straddle the art house/commercial fence and has already snapped up five TIFF films, including Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and Black and White by Aussie Craig Lahiff. But U.S. majors are making life difficult for the upstart boutique, Lum says, by buying more than the usual number of niche films.

He doubts he’ll buy Canadian. Aussie audiences prefer American or U.K. fare, he says, followed in order by local product, other European films, most notably French and Italian, and Chinese-language movies. ‘Australia doesn’t really have a history of successful Canadian releases,’ he says.

Nonetheless, TIFF industry director Kelley Alexander agrees that there is a common appetite and renewed competition this year for small pictures. ‘[Buyers] will be really lucky if they can buy a somewhat unknown director or foreign-language [film] that gets a lot of attention,’ she says.

Texas-based boutique Outrider Pictures hopes to avoid costly bidding wars by seeking out films that escape the notice of competitors, audiences or even the press.

‘The vast majority of the pictures that premiere at Toronto don’t get caught up in the flurry,’ says president Kjehl Rasmussen. ‘We’re finding more and more that there are many good pictures that get overlooked…but that we can turn them around, find a niche market and do quite well.’

Films that fit the bill often come from young directors. Rookies are more creative on tight budgets, says Rasmussen, and first- or second-time films can be had for a fraction of the usual cost.

‘We’re looking for Asian or Hispanic or even gay-themed pictures,’ he adds. ‘It’s got to be enough of an independent take on a subject, to have a voice, that separates it from the pack of the other 10 or 20 releases in this country every week.’

Canuck films are not a top priority at Outrider, but that could change. ‘We’re seeing more Canadian product that’s broad enough to cross not only the U.S. border but the international border, too,’ he says.

Buyers and sellers alike agree the recent market upheaval in Germany and France has frazzled nerves and tightened purse strings. ‘Theatrical or all-rights buyers always look to television in Europe as a safety valve,’ says Charlotte Mickie, managing director of international motion picture sales at Alliance Atlantis, nodding to the recent chaos at Vivendi Universal and Canal Plus. ‘So when there’s a change or a decline in TV that’s a problem.’

Koido Kanako, a buyer for Tokyo-based film and video distributor Klockworx, says the change was obvious after Cannes. ‘I think Toronto is going to be really difficult for me because I don’t think many companies bought a lot in Cannes this year. So that means they’re going to send a lot of people here to Toronto. I think it’s going to be the most competitive market yet.’

Kanako has a strong track record. She bought both The Blair Witch Project and Canadian director Vincenzo Natali’s Cube for Klockworx and both were smash hits in Japan. Like many of her colleagues, she is again digging through the niche market, looking for a gem. She buys two or three titles a year. ‘I want something different from a new country. Maybe Greece. Something that no one’s really touched…I’m not here to find something big budget. I don’t go to the premieres for the major movies because I have no chance to buy.’

Canadian films often play well with her young and hip audience back home. ‘Canadian directors tend to have the same kind of European tastes that really fit with Japanese audiences,’ she says. ‘Cronenberg films always play well in Japan.’

Klockworx is betting the same will be true of Natali’s latest feature, Nothing, which it has partly financed.

Competition at TIFF for Asian markets has grown in recent years, she adds. ‘Most of the Japanese buyers I know started coming three years ago,’ she says. ‘Now it’s a must-come festival.’

Like most buyers, she’s trying to keep an open mind.

Odeon Films president Bryan Gliserman agrees it’s all but impossible to pick films by formula.

‘It’s very difficult to generalize what qualities the right films will have,’ he says. ‘Must it be English-language? No, not necessarily. It need not be in a particular genre. We’ve had successes in every genre. Must we acquire it from a sales agent or another distributor? No. Very often films come to the fest unheralded. Those are the gems we seek out.’

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest