Toronto hosts what is considered the second-largest film festival in the world, but for Canadian filmmakers, the paradox of TIFF is the odds against homegrown talent finding and winning over buyers in what sometimes seems like a Turkish bazaar.

Indigenous directors and talent attached to Canadian flicks too often go missing in action in Toronto, elbowed aside by Hollywood stars trundling down the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall or bypassed by media rushing to junket-style interviews and press conferences.

Canuck filmmakers, producers, distributors, publicists and sales agents have to work that much harder in their own backyard to ensure their movies generate buzz and media coverage at the festival, if ever their movies are to thrive on general release.

‘Our biggest concern is making sure Canadian films don’t disappear, as often they do during the festival,’ says Robin Smith of Montreal distributor Seville Pictures. ‘All you need are Hollywood stars to come here and the media rushes to them rather than the Canadian director.’

Undeterred, Canadians will pursue a number of film marketing strategies in Toronto.

Seville, bringing Soo Lyu’s Rub & Tug and Terrance Odette’s Saint Monica to this year’s fest, is championing a grassroots marketing campaign that stresses building word of mouth both before and during the festival.

‘Talk to people. I tell anyone involved on our side, from the publicists to the volunteers, that they have to go out and sing the party line, identifying themselves with films X, Y, and Z,’ says Smith.

Rub & Tug, a sexy comedy with a high T&A quotient starring Don McKellar, will have three teaser posters and a trailer in cinemas ahead of the festival.

Eschewing the T-shirt, the distributor is preparing a daring media press kit that includes a massage oil bottle with the Rub & Tug label and a hand towel.

It also helps that McKellar’s three co-actors in this comedy about a late-night ‘full-body’ massage parlor, Lindy Booth, Kira Clavell and Tara Spencer-Nairn, are ready and willing to parade about the festival in-character and in-costume: one domineering, another naive and the third with a nipple obsession.

Fashion also figures largely in the marketing effort behind Edoardo Ponti’s Between Strangers, an Italian/ Canadian coproduction starring Sophia Loren and Mira Sorvino.

The movie’s distributor, Montreal-based Equinox Films, has arranged a retail tie-in with Holt Renfrew’s 12 stores nationwide in partnership with the Italian Film Commission.

‘Viva Italia’, a Holt Renfrew promotion of Italian fashion to kick off on Sept. 12, will be well-timed to help launch the national release of Between Strangers on Oct. 4.

The movie, coproduced by David Cronenberg collaborator Gabriella Martinelli, was shot last year in Toronto and marks the directorial debut of Edoardo Ponti, Sophia Loren’s son.

Loren and Ponti will host a gala premiere of the film in Toronto on Sept. 13 as a special presentation screening and take part in a daylong press junket.

Hussain Amarshi, president of Toronto’s Mongrel Media, which has four Canadian pictures at TIFF, sees the festival as one stage in the campaign to eventually launch a Canadian movie onto domestic cinema screens on general release.

As the distributor, his strategy does run partly counter to that of the festival organizers, who are looking for instant results at the event, starting with an appreciative, full-capacity audience for a film’s debut.

To help that, Stacey Donen, co-programmer for the Perspective Canada showcase, says the festival works to ensure audiences are stuffed full of key industry and media players.

‘Canadian films need extra support in finding an audience that is fit for the film,’ he says.

Amarshi, on the other hand, sees his role in working with the director to position the film for eventual theatrical release.

An example: Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood, chosen to kick off Perspective Canada on Sept. 6, is set to bow in Canada soon after on Oct. 25. After the festival, Mehta will take the film to Sudbury and Vancouver.

Amarshi is hoping the bulk of reviews and articles on Bollywood/ Hollywood come out in October during the general release. ‘That’s when we need the push,’ he says.

Odeon Films, a division of Toronto-based Alliance Atlantis Communications, will be unspooling seven titles by Canadians at the festival, most with fall 2002 release dates.

Distributors introduce their films, directors and talent to festival media – building early awareness of a picture and encouraging journalists to bank feature pieces to run at the time of release.

But Mark Slone, Odeon’s VP of marketing and publicity, insists there is little use in competing with the Hollywood marketing machine at the festival for the attention of attending film writers.

For example, Slone says Odeon can more easily and casually pair up a homegrown filmmaker with a Canadian journalist just before a film is released.

‘[At the festival], we focus on pairings that will be hard to replicate after – especially talent based in the U.S. or overseas,’ he says.

Exceptions are films that have a release following quickly on the heels of their festival premiere. Here, the trick is to create more immediate awareness among the festival audiences. One way to tout homegrown films in Toronto is to have filmmakers and talent attend a couple of key parties.

The hot ticket for Canadian filmmakers is Citytv’s and MovieTelevision’s ‘Festival Schmooze’ on Sept. 6.

Dan Duford, MovieTelevision producer, says the telecast aims at instilling Canadian film with much-needed glitz and glamour by placing homegrown filmmakers and talent on the same red carpet as a Steven Soderbergh or an Anthony Hopkins.

‘It’s always a struggle in Canada to promote our own, especially when there’s not much money. We’re giving them free promotion,’ he says.

Marcia Martin, producer of Star!, which will cover the red carpet entrances on Sept. 6, says the telecast is all about ‘exposing faces and names and film clips, so that people will recognize Canadian film.’

Another must-attend is the CBC party for Canadian film, also on the first Friday night, a more humble affair hosted by Debbie Bernstein, CBC’s executive director of arts and entertainment.

Bernstein says the CBC’s English- and French-language TV networks prelicense and acquire a number of Canadian movie titles annually and look to the festival party in Toronto to pat itself and its featured Canadian filmmakers on the back.

‘It’s a big thank you, and an opportunity for talent and directors to meet key people, because the invite list has those on relevant boards and funding agencies,’ she adds.

Of course, it does not help that a film’s distributor, publicist and producer will line up media interviews for a director and talent if they do not take full advantage of the opportunity.

Distributors caution their Canadian filmmakers against assuming the Canadian media should or will be drawn to homegrown filmmakers at the Toronto festival.

MovieTelevision’s Duford insists filmmakers and talent should learn to tell a good story. ‘We really do try to promote Canadian film. But we have to entertain the audience,’ he says.

Odeon’s Slone also tells his filmmakers to always assume the microphone is on. ‘Journalists have a job to do and being their new best friends isn’t it. [Filmmakers] can’t blame the media when an offhand comment at a party about another filmmaker or antics of a cast member on set makes its way into print,’ he says.

And Slone adds filmmakers should keep it simple when speaking to the media. ‘Keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to encourage people to see the film,’ he says. ‘Talk to the mainstream media about the story, the stars, what’s special and unique. Save the lecture on the three hours it took to get this or that shot for a Montage interview.’