And the moral of this story is – get it in writing.

The market for movies at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival will be best remembered for the Thank You For Smoking debacle – which saw Paramount Classic’s handshake deal for the Jason Reitman comedy evaporate when Fox Searchlight made, and signed, a better offer overnight. The pic went for a rumored US$7 million, sounding a cautionary note to buyers that TIFF is less forgiving now than in the old days, and that prices are continuing to climb.

‘A handshake deal doesn’t suffice anymore,’ says Laurie May of Maple Pictures. ‘It’s a very competitive environment now, and until things are written in stone you don’t have a deal.’

And yet, festival codirector Noah Cowan is bullish about this year’s market. ‘I think we’re going to see the highest dollar volume of sales ever coming out of this festival,’ he says.

TIFF saw two other deals signed for close to $7 million each – Trust the Man and Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. Cowan, speaking on the closing day of the fest, predicted that deals worth another $10 million to $15 million were about to close.

‘The numbers are starting to get very, very high,’ he notes.

Among Canadian films, the hottest ticket was C.R.A.Z.Y., which signed some 25 territories over the festival’s first few days – going to Golem in Spain, Cineart in Belgium, Film Trade in Greece, Rialto Films in Australia and other distribs in Greece, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Mexico, Scandinavia, Brazil, Venezuela and Israel.

The Montreal-set comedy-drama by Jean-Marc Vallée has made more than $5 million at the domestic box office and is carried by sales agent Films Distribution in France.

Fetching Cody also closed a deal for U.S. distribution with Panorama Entertainment through Vancouver sales agent/prodco Cheap and Dirty Productions. A U.S. release is expected in the spring.

Seville Pictures also kept busy as sales agent for the much-buzzed Canuck films Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Horloge biologique, These Girls and La Neuvaine. The Quebec outfit sold Metal – part of the Midnight Madness program – to Momentum Pictures in the U.K., Dendy Film in Australia and Future Film in Scandinavia.

These Girls, a comedy boosted by the presence of TV star David Boreanaz, also sold to Mexico’s Quality Film and Alphaville in Brazil, and is said to have raised interest in the U.S.

Seville VP of sales Anick Poirier was ‘thrilled’ with this year’s market. She’s optimistic that These Girls will be picked up elsewhere in central and South America, noting, ‘Once Mexico is closed, then that trickles down to Peru and Colombia because you have the dubbing.’

And yet, perhaps predictably, Horloge and Neuvaine were tougher sells despite their strong reviews and box office at home.

‘I’m a little disappointed. There’s been some really positive stuff on Horloge but nothing’s been closed,’ says Poirier. ‘It’s always more difficult if it’s a French-language film, and comedy is always a little more difficult to close worldwide if it’s not U.S.’ Neuvaine, a drama by Bernard Émond, will ‘take a little longer to sell,’ too, she adds.

Other Canucks had a hard time standing out from the Hollywood crowd. Producer Erik Paulsson brought his Eve and the Fire Horse to TIFF on a wave of good buzz but had not signed any deals by the closing days of the festival.

‘It’s very difficult for Canadian films, especially in the Canada First! program, to get the attention we would have liked,’ he says. ‘I think there’s a stigma attached… there are so many huge high-profile films, and the buyers have limited time.’

The picture came looking for an international sales agent but garnered some interest, he says, from distribs in Japan and Latin America. ‘It didn’t help that our industry screening was on Thursday at 9 o’clock before anyone else arrived,’ he adds.

‘It’s really tough out there,’ agrees Karen Powell, exec producer of The Cabin Movie, another Canada First! pic, by director Dylan Akio Smith. Cabin was buoyed, however, by its participation in TIFF’s new Marketing Assistance Program.

‘They had a team of people doing posters and trailers and clips and everything,’ she says. ‘It made a difference… we had 108 in our press and industry screening and only 10 left. So we got them in there. Whether or not they liked it is a whole other issue.’

Some feel the market for Canadian films was slower at this TIFF than in previous years. ‘It’s true. On the Canadian side I didn’t hear about any of them doing spectacularly well – bidding wars or anything like that,’ says Nicholas Tabarrok, producer of The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico. ‘I think it’s a bit cooler all around.’

Brad Pelman, also of Maple, notes that dealmakers are increasingly using TIFF as a follow-up to previous festivals, and as a springboard for later events such as Sundance or the American Film Market.

‘That’s been the case for the last few markets,’ he says. ‘Over the last five years I’ve seen a lot more international sales companies set up shop in the hotels… [TIFF] is almost turning into a post-Cannes or pre-AFM market.’

Geoffrey Gilmore, director of Sundance, says it was a ‘strong year’ for Canuck films, although his festival has not yet announced any picks.

‘Canadian film continues to evolve. It continues to develop into something that has broader and more diverse qualities,’ he says. ‘I’m talking about everything from soft films, edgy films, films that are genre films, that are art films that tell personal stories. That’s a broad spectrum and those four were all in this year’s program.’

Cowan believes he and the other festival organizers ‘really did our job getting Canadian films into the marketplace,’ citing the strong sales of C.R.A.Z.Y. and the Marketing Assistance Program as examples.

‘The enhanced profiles of films that entered the program was obvious. They actually had a profile,’ he says.