Heading into the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival, market activity is finally picking up steam.
A steady stream of deal announcements includes newly launched Overture Films acquiring the North American rights to Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor on Tuesday for $1 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and Lumina Films grabbing the sales rights beyond North America for Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi’s Iraq-set documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad.
Elsewhere, Strand Releasing bought all North American rights to Jacques Nolot’s Avant que j’oublie and The Weinstein Company scooped the U.S. and Latin American rights to Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego King of the Hill. Seville Pictures bought the Canadian rights to the Spanish thriller.
But, despite small deals in the works, nothing has come close to matching the Weinstein deal struck on Sept. 7 that grabbed the worldwide rights to John Crowley’s Boy A.
Giulia Filippelli, head of the festival’s sales and industry office, says buyers were swirling Tuesday around a number of titles, including Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg and Avi Nesher’s The Secrets.
‘There’s a lot of major deals in film sales, output deals and collaborations. The European buyers are telling me they’re acquiring quite a few movies,’ she reported.