Credit Bell Lightbox with giving the Toronto International Film Festival something distinctly like what it has long discouraged: a central film marketplace.

A host of sales agents are setting out their shingles next door at the Hyatt Regency hotel to shop acquisition titles.

“Despite the recent acquisition by a huge corporation like Reliance, we’re continuing to focus on the same core principles that we preached in our sales agency days – backing commercially-driven films budgeted at the right level and with story and talent components that can be monetized globally,” explained Stuart Ford, CEO of IM Global.

TIFF has traditionally maintained an informal film market in the upper reaches of the Four Seasons and Park Hyatt hotels in Yorkville, or for smaller players in the lobbies of the Sutton Place hotel or local cinemas like the Varsity or Cumberland.

Without formal sales booths as in Cannes or AFM, key buyers and sellers have tended to make initial connections via mobile phones and email before getting busy with formal negotiations and deals.

But IM Global this year has rented the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt Regency to aggressively shop four TIFF titles – the Will Farrell-starrer Everything Must Go, Bunraku, Insidious and Vanishing on 7th Street.

Also Toronto-bound is Norton Herrick, chairman and CEO of Herrick Entertainment, which financed Vanishing on 7th Street, a chiller about the end of the world after a massive power outage that stars Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo and will screen in the Midnight Madness program.

Herrick said he’ll be cautious doing business in Toronto, given the current indie film downturn.

“Having made my money outside of the movie business, I don’t feel burdened by having to make deals using the traditional Hollywood business paradigm which, like Las Vegas odds, stacks the deck against an investor willing to put his money at risk in a movie,” he urged.

Also looking to do business in Toronto is Phase 4 Films topper Barry Meyerowitz, who’s releasing content in the U.S. market, or solely in Canada, depending on rights availabilities.

“We also provide finishing funds for projects in production, and are looking to become more involved with Canadian and Telefilm funded projects,” he added.

And Toronto movie producer Gary Howsam will see CAA shop his George Hickenlooper-directed Casino Jack here after a recent U.S. distribution deal with Metropolitan Inc. fell through.

Howsam isn’t making predictions about this year’s TIFF film market.

“I’m not an expert. But it’s obvious to everyone the market tends to be driven by U.S. blockbuster pictures, and it’s tough to get in. It’s a challenge. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” Howsam said.

Casino Jack, a Kevin Spacey-starring drama about jailed Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff that was shot in Toronto, bow September 16 at Roy Thomson Hall, with fellow cast Barry Pepper, Jon Lovitz and Kelly Preston in attendance.