It takes a lot of you-know-what to open a self-distributed, no-star, low-budget picture opposite TIFF – but that didn’t stop Aaron Sorensen and his Hank Williams First Nation, which made its Toronto debut on five screens on Sept. 9, day two of the festival.

‘The timing was right for us. We had the opportunity, the screens were open and the bookers were willing to take it,’ he says. That, and the film is looking for distributors and sales agents. ‘We’re in negotiations now. It looks like we’ll finally get picked up.’

The road movie has been playing festivals and mostly small-town western locations since spring, gaining buzz along the way for its heartfelt look at life on a Cree reserve. It debuted at last year’s American Film Institute festival, its first-ever Canadian film in competition.

Sorensen says the box office stands at about $140,000. That’s on par, by the way, with the first-run takes of last year’s TIFF darlings Clean and Saint Ralph – both of which had earned in the mid-$100,000s when they fell off the domestic charts back in the spring – and miles ahead of the fizzled hot ticket Phil the Alien.

Hank Williams First Nation features Jimmy Herman and Gordon Tootoosis.