Three years ago, Randy Manis didn’t pay much attention to documentaries screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. But for the senior VP of acquisitions and business affairs at Toronto-based distributor ThinkFilm, TIFF 2004 is all about docs.

There are a record number of nonfiction films screening at the festival this year, many of which festival codirector Noah Cowan says ‘will be among the significant acquisition titles.’

In total, 34 docs will screen at TIFF, with five Canadian feature docs making their world premieres to audiences packed with distributors looking for the next doc feature hit.

‘At TIFF this year we’re paying serious attention to docs, which have become a much larger priority for us over the last two years,’ says Manis. ‘It’s not our goal to buy documentaries, but at every festival, the most interesting films we see have turned out to be documentaries, and now 30% to 40% of our slate is comprised of [docs], which we could never have imagined a few years ago.’

It was at TIFF 2002 that ThinkFilm discovered Spellbound. Convinced of the film’s theatrical potential, ThinkFilm acquired the feature documentary about the competitive world of spelling bees, which ended up being part of the first wave of highly successful theatrical docs. Other popular doc titles that year included Bowling for Columbine (US$38 million in worldwide box office), Winged Migration (US$18 million) and Capturing the Friedmans (US$4 million). ThinkFilm’s recent doc acquisitions include Festival Express, The Story of the Weeping Camel, Mondovino and George Butler’s Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, which screens this year in Real to Reel, the fest’s nonfiction showcase.

Another thing that attracts ThinkFilm to documentaries, according to Manis, is their post-theatrical potential.

‘It’s a much-improved marketplace for docs on an ancillary basis,’ he says. ‘There are a lot of places to go in television, both in Canada and the U.S., and the video marketplace has improved correspondingly with the theatrical marketplace, so it’s a very good business for us.’

Ancillary markets are particularly good for docs that can be easily marketed to niche audiences, explains Manis. After a successful theatrical run, ThinkFilm’s chess-themed doc Game Over, for example, lent itself to targeted marketing to the chess community, exposing the film to a new and potentially untapped audience.

At this year’s festival, Manis says he will be watching James D. Stern’s and Adam Del Deo’s The Year of the Yao, about Yao Ming’s first year in the NBA, not only because he thinks it could have a successful theatrical run, but also because of the potential to market the DVD to basketball fans.

While DVD sales of documentaries are rising steadily, it is the phenomenal box-office success of films such as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 that continue to drive the doc market. Fahrenheit 9/11, distributed by Alliance Atlantis in Canada, has generated more than $18.7 million at the domestic box office alone, representing 22% of the film’s total North American take, significantly higher than the usual 10%. Meanwhile, Super Size Me has generated $2.4 million for AAC subsidiary Odeon Films.

However, while docs have traditionally been less expensive to acquire than dramatic features, Manis says the price of docs is going up steadily as their popularity increases.

‘We probably could have gone to Real to Reel four years ago and picked up most of the films for next to nothing,’ he says. ‘Now any film that has any kind of buzz is going to be a competitive situation and a potentially expensive venture. It’s great, but it’s also a new level of madness in an area that used to be calm.’

This is good news for documentary filmmakers like Peter Raymont, who hopes the Sept. 12 screening of his feature doc Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire will help the film secure international television sales and a theatrical release. Retired Canadian lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire will attend the Real to Reel screening of the doc about his experience as witness to the Rwandan genocide.

‘I’ve been beating my head against the wall at this crazy business for over 30 years and this is the most important film I’ve ever made,’ says Raymont. The 91-minute doc was produced in both French and English, which Raymont hopes will encourage sales to France.

One of the most important advantages of premiering at TIFF is that distributors and international broadcasters will see the full-length version of the film, rather than cut versions due to air on principal broadcasters CBC and Radio-Canada.

Raymont says that as soon as the announcement came that Shake Hands with the Devil would be included in this year’s Real to Reel program, he started hearing from international broadcasters interested in the film.

And he’s not the only Canadian feature doc director who has been approached by distributors before the world premieres of their films.

Toronto director Peter Lynch also says he’s been contacted by several international distributors expressing interest in his 90-minute doc A Whale of a Tale, which also preems in Real to Reel. The film is about the director’s journey into the world of whaling, which begins with the discovery of a whale bone during the excavation of a Toronto subway line.

Part of what makes TIFF different this year, according to Lynch, is the festival’s decision to include Canadian films in international programming rather than the now-retired Perspective Canada.

‘Being in the Real to Reel program is a great chance to be on the stage with other works getting international attention. From a marketing perspective alone it gives you more juice and exposure,’ he says.

After his feature doc Scaredsacred was accepted at TIFF, Vancouver-based filmmaker Velcrow Ripper was also surprised when distributors started tracking him down rather than the other way around.

‘Usually you’re chasing them, and it’s great because now they’re calling us and are already very interested in the film,’ he says. ‘There’s definitely a sense that people are looking for the next big feature doc.’

Scaredsacred investigates the sites of some of the worst tragedies in the world in search of survivors who have managed to grow in the aftermath of adversity.

Tom Perlmutter, the National Film Board’s director general, English Program, says that as documentary films become more attractive to mainstream audiences and make for more financially viable acquisitions, events such as TIFF are increasingly important showcases. Both A Whale of a Tale and Scaredsacred are NFB titles.

While Hot Docs is a festival driven by television broadcasters, Perlmutter explains it is theatrical distributors that drive TIFF, making it an important venue for feature-length docs.

‘Suddenly docs are playing in the same kind of field as feature films,’ he says. ‘At this point, a presence at a prestigious festival like Toronto becomes significant as a launching pad for this kind of work.’

While they were not finished in time for this year’s TIFF, two NFB feature docs currently in post are looking to soon make their world premieres on the festival circuit, says Perlmutter. Imperfect Peace (working title) from Paul Cowan takes an inside look at U.S. peacekeeping efforts in the Congo. It is an NFB majority coproduction with Arte in France. Meanwhile, War Hospital was filmed over two months at the world’s largest field hospital in northern Kenya. It is coproduced with NHK, Japan’s major public broadcaster.

Documentary filmmakers who are unaccustomed to the spotlight may be surprised this year, as distributors hungry for nonfiction fare vie for the 14 docs making their world premieres at TIFF.