So far, so good. By day six, our press day, of the Toronto International Film Festival, nothing had gone horribly wrong – which is unusual in this town, these days, coming off a summer beset by SARS, the West Nile virus, lagging tourism, and the East Coast blackout.

Toronto the Troubled has looked to the 28th edition of the world’s number two fest for a change of luck, and early indications are good.

‘The industry and press requests were both up this year, we had to turn people away, and we sold out of public passes earlier than ever before,’ says spokesperson Gabrielle Free.

The numbers don’t change much from year to year, she adds, ‘but I think the festival has really helped the city. The press seem happy, the industry seems happy. It’s gangbusters.’

At the opening night gala, festival head Piers Handling noted, ‘They threw everything at us this year. But we managed to come through.

‘We have a number of first-time films this year, by 20- and 21- and 22-year-olds,’ he added, flanked by fellow organizers at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. ‘We’re finding the talent of the future, and we’re wondering what will be the next Whale Rider this year.’

It remains to be seen, however, if people are spending and signing. Few deals had been announced as of press time and distributors have been heard to complain that the fest’s most attractive films have already been snapped up. Recent markets at Venice and Cannes were also sluggish and buyers hope Toronto will turn things around.

TIFF ran additional press and industry screenings this year, giving priority access to buyers, following complaints about overcrowding in 2002.

Hussain Amarshi, president of Toronto distrib Mongrel Media, remains optimistic. ‘I don’t think it’s any different from any other year,’ he says. ‘Some of the high-profile [deals] haven’t happened as yet, but I won’t be surprised if, by the end of the festival, they emerge.

‘We’re tracking a bunch of films,’ he adds. ‘We haven’t moved on them yet, but they’re all looking good.’

The 10-day fete kicked off Sept. 4 with the gala screening of Denys Arcand’s Les Invasions barbares, a touching and thoughtful follow-up to the director’s 1986 breakthrough Le Declin de l’empire americain.

Invasions is already old news in Quebec, where it opened in May, but launching with a four-month-old sequel apparently did little to slow the momentum of TIFF. The opening gala ended with a hearty standing ovation for Arcand and his cast.

People also jumped to their feet, and stayed there for several minutes, after the screening of Go Further, the new doc by Ron Mann about eco-friendly living. Mann was starry eyed at the party later that night, and bleary eyed later on, after a few hours of partying with narrator Woody Harrelson, with whom he previously teamed for the movie Grass.

‘The credit goes to Ron,’ said Harrelson, ‘I just do the talking.’ Go Further looks to be the non-fiction hit of the festival, good news for backer CHUM Television, which is also handling sales.

Harrelson, director Deepa Mehta, Sir Ian McKellen, Mark McKinney, Jennifer Tilly, Parker Posey and singers Bif Naked and Neil Young were among the celebs who also squeezed into the Citytv parking lot for its annual Festival Schmooze, which opened the Perspective Canada program. McKinney is back in town to promote Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music in the World, another early smash that has scored rave reviews (a ‘masterpiece’ said The Globe and Mail) and drawn press and industry away from highly-touted flicks such as Pieces of April, with Katie Holmes.

Also lighting up the room was professional party-goer/cautionary example Mark ‘Flyerman’ Vistorino, whose fumbling quest for fame and flashy duds (he wears a suit covered with tiny lightbulbs) are the subject of the doc Flyerman, by newbies Jeff Stephenson and Jason Tann. Buoyed by Vistorino’s local popularity, Flyerman has people talking at TIFF despite mixed reviews.

CHUM threw or had a hand in the best bashes this year, snatching the party hat and noisemaker from Alliance Atlantis, which called off its annual blowout.

At the Rogers Industry Centre, a week of shop talk started with Young, promoting Greendale, his second feature as director. Young spoke candidly with New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell about his career and the role of his music in numerous films over the last 25 years.

The 56-year-old rocker is trying to develop the story of blues guitarist Jimmy Reed. ‘It’s a great American story and a very human story,’ Young said of Reed’s migration from the Delta to Chicago in the 1950s. ‘But I don’t think I have the [moviemaking] chops yet [to do the project justice.]’

Should Greendale get any distribution, there may be a lesson there for struggling fund-starved Canadian filmmakers. The feature stars Young’s friends and family, there is no dialogue, it’s shot by Young himself with a hand-held camera and features such low-budget props as a cutout cardboard car.

The Telefilm Canada News and Views, unfortunately, was marred by a poor choice of venue, relocating from the stately Windsor Arms hotel to the back-end of a noisy restaurant on Bay Street. It was very difficult indeed to hear over the clattering plates and talkative kitchen staff as Telefilm exec director Richard Stursberg and THINKFilm president Jeff Sackman revisited their debate, from last year, about Telefilm’s 5% box-office goal for Canuck movies.

Stursberg noted, however, that distributors and other companies are now working much more closely to better market Canadian movies, and argued that his controversial plan has boosted the county’s genre pics without hurting ‘auteur’ projects.

Sackman agreed that a ‘sea change’ is underway in Canadian film, and that producers are accepting the new commercial priorities, but added, ‘Things will get tougher before they get better.’