Sales and bidding were brisk at the close of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where some 700 buyers crossed paths with 400 movies, and several major titles from both Canada and abroad have since signed or moved towards distribution deals.

Alliance Atlantis snapped up the international rights to Robert Lepage’s The Far Side of the Moon, and will release in Quebec and English Canada through its Vivafilm and Odeon Films arms, respectively. Guy Maddin’s well-received The Saddest Music in the World went to IFC and Ron Mann’s Go Further has reportedly set off an avalanche of offers from U.S. and international distribs, although nothing has yet been signed. A soundtrack deal with Warner Bros. is also in the works.

Seville Pictures also bought the French Canadian rights to Pedro Almodovar’s Bad Education and the cross-Canada rights to the German box-office hit Good Bye Lenin.

‘It was a very, very active year for acquisitions,’ says TIFF industry ringleader Kelley Alexander, noting that foreign-language films and docs were the hottest items this year, and that attendance was again up among buyers from Japan, the U.K., Finland and the Czech Republic.

At least 10 titles were ‘in play’ by the close of the opening weekend, climbing to 35 by the fest’s finale, she says, including The Green Butchers, Coffee and Cigarettes, Grimm, Jeux d’enfants, Rosenstrasse, Vodka Lemon and The Snow Walker.

Lions Gate picked up the French thriller Haute Tension, from director Alexandre Aja and exec producer Luc Besson, and Sony Pictures Classics bought Facing Window by Italy’s Ferzan Ozpetek and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring by Korean director Kim Ki-duk, as well as Mario Van Peebles’s ode to his father Melvin, How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass.

Meanwhile, the festival ended as it began – with applause for Denys Arcand and his Les Invasions barbares, which won the $30,000 prize for best Canadian feature at the closing awards on Sept 14.

The film, a follow-up to his breakthrough Le Declin de l’empire americain, which won the same award in 1986, opened this year’s fest to much acclaim on Sept. 4, following a bow at Cannes and a theatrical run in Quebec.

Judges commended the movie’s ‘wit, wisdom and compassion,’ adding that ‘profound complexities… are reflected through the lives of beautifully wrought characters.’

Arcand – just back from a promo tour in Europe – thanked the crowd while his seven-year-old daughter wriggled to the front of the press scrum and took pictures with a disposable camera.

Toronto filmmaker Sudz Sutherland took the best first Canuck feature and $15,000 for Love, Sex and Eating the Bones, his fun and sexy debut comedy. The People’s Choice Award went in absentia to Japanese cult favorite ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano for his samurai pic Zatoichi, one of this year’s Masters selections.

Kitano beat out two Canadian docs for the honor: first runner-up Go Further by Ron Mann and second runner-up The Corporation by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott.

Rounding out the awards, more than 750 reporters voted Rhinoceros Eyes, by Toronto helmer Aaron Woodley, into the Discovery Award, while Montreal’s Constant Mentzas went home with $10,000 and the nod for best Canadian short for Aspiration. The FIPRESCI prize, awarded each year to a world premiere by an emerging filmmaker, went to November and Spanish director Achero Manas for ‘its freshness, its original blending of fiction and documentary techniques’ and strong performances by the principals.

-www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2003