It was all smiles at Bell Lightbox Tuesday after 38 films that screened last September at the Toronto international Film Festival snagged Oscar nominations.

Tops among the TIFF titles awash in Oscar optimism was Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech, which grabbed 12 nominations after being named the most popular film at Toronto’s 35th edition last September.

“We’re thrilled to see that 38 of this year’s Oscar nominations went to films screened at TIFF,” fest co-director Cameron Bailey said Tuesday from Sundance.

Bailey was especially hopeful for Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, the Quebec film that bowed in Toronto before being named the best Canadian film by the festival jury.

“We’re honored to have helped launch films like Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies and look forward to doing it again this September,” Bailey added.

The other four international films that Incendies will compete against in the Academy Awards’ best foreign language category also screened in Toronto:Dogtooth, which premiered at TIFF in 2009, Biutiful, Outside the Law and In a Better World.

Certain TIFF titles now bathed in Oscar glory like The King’s Speech, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (pictured) and Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, were covered in Telluride or Venice before days later cementing their awards season status in Toronto in front of the assembled world media and industry.

But TIFF’s Bailey said Toronto repeated this year as the festival that solidifies a film’s Oscar potential after expensive and risky red carpet premieres at Roy Thomson Hall, the Elgin and elsewhere round the city.

“Film festivals play an increasing role in finding the year’s best movies,” he added, underlining Toronto’s reputation as an Oscar launch-pad each September.