What’s the best way for a Canadian distributor to promote a film booked into the Toronto International Film Festival? With the help of Americans, of course.

Given the huge number of film buyers and sellers and media on hand each September, Toronto has become a key fall venue for Canadian distributors to launch their upcoming slates and acquire new films. And they often use U.S. partners and marketing campaigns to help build expectations for films unspooling at TIFF. A good dose of U.S. media attention and the inevitable spillover certainly can’t hurt.

For example, Seville Pictures is bringing Jonathan Caouette’s festival circuit hit Tarnation, about life with his schizophrenic mother, to Toronto just ahead of Wellspring’s Oct. 8 U.S. release. Seville will launch the doc north of the border one week later in partnership with Capri Releasing.

‘We want to wait a week, to let all the U.S. press flow over and the film to percolate,’ says David Reckziegel, Seville copresident.

Other Canadian distribs will similarly be partnering with their U.S. counterparts at TIFF and beyond to launch fall titles in tandem.

Hometown distrib ThinkFilm snagged the Toronto opening-night slot for Being Julia, which is a bonus for Sony Pictures Classics, as the two outfits prepare to launch the Istvan Szabo comedy in wide release Oct. 15. ThinkFilm president and CEO Jeff Sackman is ecstatic about the film’s opening position.

‘From a practical business view, you get the media concentration and an efficient way to get the media to come to you, rather than you having to go to them,’ he says.

ThinkFilm is betting that having Warren Beatty walk up the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall alongside wife and Being Julia costar Annette Bening will prove an irresistible draw for the paparazzi.

The current U.S. presidential election season will figure in two additional ThinkFilm promotions at Toronto. The first is the world premiere of the political documentary Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, U.S. director George Butler’s portrayal of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam experiences. The Toronto bow will be followed by an Oct. 1 theatrical release in select U.S. cities.

Sackman is looking to attract a number of North American political activists, including Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, to Butler’s world premiere to encourage media exposure and buzz. ThinkFilm is also bringing Sean Penn to Toronto to bring attention to Niels Mueller’s The Assassination of Richard Nixon, also starring Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle. The drama is drawing early comparisons to Taxi Driver.

Other ThinkFilm promotional pushes include Hungarian director Nimrod Antal accompanying his thriller Kontroll, which will unspool in the Midnight Madness program, and U.S. director Shane Carruth’s feature debut Primer, a thriller about four inventors, which is coming to town after it snagged the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Meanwhile, Odeon Films will similarly promote fall U.S. indie theatrical releases at TIFF. These include Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries, an international copro about Che Guevara from Focus Features, and John Waters’ typically wacky A Dirty Shame from Fine Line Features. Rounding out the list is Newmarket Films’ end-of-2004 release slate: John Sayles’ political thriller Silver City, Dylan Kidd’s romantic comedy P.S. and Nicole Kassell’s controversial The Woodsman, which stars Kevin Bacon as a pedophile.

‘We’ll host a great amount of talent, aid sales agents in their initiatives, relate to the domestic and foreign press, and work with suppliers that hold film rights,’ Odeon president Bryan Gliserman says of the distrib’s hefty workload at TIFF.

Ted Riley, president of Alliance Atlantis’ distribution arm, will be bringing in Cassian Elwes of the William Morris Agency and Andrew Hurwitz of the Film Sales Company, both veteran hired guns from the U.S., to help with world sales for Michael McGowan’s Saint Ralph, which will open the inaugural Canada First! sidebar (see story, p.18).

Timing is everything

Of course, a film’s marketing campaign at TIFF is highly dependent on how soon its release will follow the fest. In the case of a September-to-November release, Canadian distribs are looking for maximum media exposure at the fest. On the other hand, with a theatrical release planned further down the road, the media must agree to meet with a film’s director and cast and bank stories for publication or airing around the time of the theatrical release.

A case in point is ThinkFilm’s Mondovino, a winemaking doc from Jonathan Nossiter that received toasts in Cannes.

‘Toronto will be a good way to introduce it like a fine wine that won’t be sold until next year,’ Sackman says.

Seville is also looking to introduce Quebec filmmaker Daniel Roby, as he brings his first feature, Peau Blanche (White Skin), to Toronto after an earlier Quebec theatrical release (see story, p.27).

‘Our objective is to introduce the public and the industry to an interesting new talent, so when his next film arrives, [Roby] is already known and considered someone to watch,’ Reckziegel says.

That strategy paid off for Seville with French director Francois Ozon, whose latest film, 5×2, is booked at TIFF following his earlier successes there with Swimming Pool and 8 Women.

5×2 represents the sixth Ozon title Seville has released in Canada via TIFF.

‘We got in early and followed his career,’ Reckziegel says, insisting such a long-term relationship is crucial to Seville’s collaboration with any director.

‘We’re seeking relationships. If people aren’t interested in those relationships, we’re less interested – because we didn’t make money on all [Ozon’s] films,’ he adds.

Not every distrib is anticipating an overly busy agenda. Michael Mosca, senior VP and COO of Equinoxe Films, says his team will mostly be screening films to acquire a hidden gem, as they’re heading into Toronto with a full 2004/05 theatrical slate and only one movie to promote – fest closer Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.

‘Usually we’re scrambling at the markets. Now we can relax a little, watch the films with some curiosity and seek out that little pearl,’ Mosca says.

Meanwhile, U.S. distributors will also be carefully monitoring the reception of TIFF moviegoers.

Howard Cohen, copresident of New York’s Roadside Attractions, along with Canadian distrib Capri, is bringing Israeli director Eytan Fox’s Walk on Water to Toronto to see how a mainstream festival audience responds ahead of a spring 2005 theatrical release.

Cohen’s challenge with Walk on Water, a thriller about an Israeli Mossad assassin who befriends the gay grandson of a Nazi war criminal he is hunting, is that it works on a number of levels.

‘We really want to learn how it plays, and zero in on which angles play best,’ he says.

‘We felt that it was a smart film about a number of really interesting contemporary topics: relations between Germany and Israel, and gay and Jewish issues. That represents two niche audiences we’re especially interested in,’ says Cohen, who bought the Israeli film at the American Film Market after it bowed in Berlin.

The film played to audiences in Berlin and at Outfest in Los Angeles, in front of a mostly gay audience. Now Cohen is looking to Toronto to see how a mainstream audience might respond.