John Sloss is the fixer and negotiator film producers favour to sell their indie gems outside the Hollywood studio system.

And the New York City-based corporate lawyer-turned-top film sales agent and executive producer at Cinetic Media does that by targeting specialty distributors like Fox Searchlight and Sony Classics at major film festivals.

That’s especially so in Sundance, where an ever-present Sloss famously brokered deals for breakout indie titles like Napoleon Dynamite, Super Size Me and Little Miss Sunshine.

But striking festival lightening in Toronto is far more difficult, Sloss told Playback as he appeared at Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Saturday as a guest speaker of Studio, TIFF’s year round industry programme.

For starters, straight-faced film buyers in Toronto know where the big players are and what each is thinking.

“If you’re a seller, and you want to do something strategic, it’s harder to do something strategic here. If you’re putting something up for auction, you’re out in the open,” Sloss said of Toronto.

Not Sundance, where it’s easier to manage negotiations as part conductor, part conjuror by keeping competing parties in the dark.

“People don’t know what everyone else is thinking. They don’t know where everyone else is. It’s easier to, for lack of a better word, manipulate the situation,” Sloss explained.

Selling indie films, after all, is very much a cat-and-mouse game, where competing parties probe and challenge offers and counter-offers to spot weakness before going for the jugular.

And that tango is key to Sloss, who is a legend at Sundance for negotiating in the moment, and in the heat of the moment, to jack up film prices for his money-starved indie clients.

Other market factors also have Sloss the dealmaker out of his comfort zone in Toronto.

That includes specialty distributors being distracted at TIFF by needing to launch films already on their slate.

“This (Toronto) is where all the specialty distributors with Oscar hopes come to basically junket their films,” he said.

“And frankly that’s much more important to them than finding a film to acquire. So their attention is divided,” he added.

Sloss insists getting distributors to attend premiere screenings is just far easier in Sundance.

That may change, he adds, as Sloss insists Toronto is taking measures to build a more seller-friendly market.

“From what I understand, they’re starting to apply resources to building a market here (Toronto) to run coincident with the film festival,” he argued.

Sloss adds he’s had better success selling star-driven movies in Toronto, compared to gritty, less commercial titles that do better in Sundance.

“I brought Friends with Kids here, which had a lot of movie stars in it. That sold very well. That might have been seen as too commercial for Sundance,” he said of the Jennifer Westfeldt-directed theatrical comedy that stars Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Megan Fox, and Adam Scott.

Sloss also points to The Place Beyond the Pines, the crime drama from writer/director Derek Cianfrance that stars Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, and Ray Liotta, and which also sold in Toronto.

“That’s a classic Toronto film” he argued.

In industry-speak, such movies are called busted theatricals, often star-driven vehicles packaged by agencies, and yet still not considered ripe for a studio release.

And far more of those titles with Hollywood appeal end up in Toronto than Sundance.

Sloss lauds Toronto as a foreign sales market, pointing to the Hyatt as filled with players.

But it’s Sundance where Sloss is king, helping nervous indie filmmakers, often whose films have difficult subject matter, secure sizable deals.

“I consider this less a festival of discovery,” he said of Toronto.

“It’s a harder time selling films. It’s the nature of the films. This is much more of a movie star-driven festival,” Sloss insisted.