At an event in Cannes, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey pledged that ‘as of September, in North America, Toronto will be the best place to do what we all do.'loic thebaud/Supplied
When you come to do business at the Cannes Film Festival, you spend a surprising amount of time in the basement.
Sitting a floor underneath the main festival hub of the Palais is the Marché du Film, a vast maze of pavilions, screening rooms and meeting spaces where 16,000 industry professionals from around the world gather every spring to buy and sell movies. Just as the publishing industry’s calendar revolves around the Frankfurt Book Fair and the agenda for the consumer electronics world is set at the CES conference in Vegas, the Cannes market determines the year for all things film.
And now, Toronto wants a piece of the action.
In September, the Toronto International Film Festival will launch TIFF: The Market, a seven-day event running parallel to North America’s largest public festival that aims to gather a United Nations’ worth of buyers, sellers and creators under the roof of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. But to compete with, or more accurately complement, the Cannes market – which itself is sandwiched between Berlin’s European Film Market in February and L.A.’s American Film Market in November – TIFF’s initiative aims to cover not only film but television and interactive content, too.
Analysis: In Cannes, a new cultural world order emerges
TIFF isn’t being shy about its ambitions.
At Cannes, the organization took out full-page ads in all of the major daily trade publications (Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen) whose copies litter the city’s hotel lobbies, cafés and screening rooms. TIFF executives, including chief executive Cameron Bailey, head of market Charles Tremblay, and vice-president of market programming Geoff Macnaughton, each dashed around the French Riviera selling the concept – more than 400 private screenings and 150 exhibition spaces – to various power players.
Dozens of movies are screening this year at the famed Cannes Film Festival in the French Riviera, with more than 20 competing for the top prize of the Palmes d'Or. Globe film editor Barry Hertz watched 25 movies over nine days – here are his top three picks.
And during one especially sunny evening, TIFF, alongside the provincial agency Ontario Creates, hosted a packed beach-side party during which Bailey pledged that, “as of September, in North America, Toronto will be the best place to do what we all do.”
Supported by a $23-million investment from the federal government – the single-largest source of government funding that TIFF has received since its early-aughts campaign to build its Lightbox headquarters – the market has the potential to herald a bold new chapter for the organization. But it is also a huge and ultimately risky bet.
“People in the industry are extremely busy, and the trips they make are well-defined in advance. So the new guys come in, and what’s that going to be like?” Tremblay, taking a break between meetings in Cannes, says in an interview alongside Bailey. “The fact that TIFF has been running for 50 years, and is considered by many to be the most well-organized festival in the world, gives people confidence.”
But there is also plenty of room for apprehension, too.
The film sector is experiencing an era of severe belt-tightening, with buyers and sellers not exactly eager to add another line item to their travel and entertainment budgets. Last year’s edition of TIFF, which featured a heavier-than-usual slate of acquisition titles – movies that arrived at the festival without a distributor attached, and were thus ripe for purchase – didn’t spark the kind of eye-popping sales that would indicate that the industry needs Toronto to be an official marketplace.
Timing is also a crucial question. Much of the European industry takes the late summer off, meaning that there could be a dearth of packages – titles that have such elements as a script and talent in place but are seeking financing to start shooting – ready to bring to the market by September for buyers, in addition to finished films ready to buy.
Another complication sits south of the border. When the Toronto market was initially announced in 2024, its closest competitor, the American Film Market, appeared to be on its last legs – only for the AFM to witness something of a resurgence in 2025.
Screen time: What TIFF needs to do to survive the next 50 years, give or take
“It’s a difficult time to buy a movie, because you’ve gone through the Sundance market, you’ve got Berlin, you’ve got Cannes, all these markets beforehand where people are buying movies,” says Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics. “There’s always room for a market if there’s stuff to buy. So what buyers are going to bring their prime product there?”
There is also a question of sustainability, with the federal funding expiring March 31, 2027. When asked earlier this month whether Ottawa was committed to reinvesting in the initiative, Culture Minister Marc Miller told The Globe that, “We’ll have to look at it and assess its success.”
“That money was incredibly critical in getting us up and running, but the market will be able to move forward with new sources of funding,” Bailey says, noting that the market will include an array of professional development programs that are good fits for philanthropic support and funding from all three levels of government.
“But the business side of the market in a fairly short amount of time should be self-sustaining. That comes from earned revenue from badge purchases and pavilions, we’ll also be selling a lot more private screenings, advertising revenue and some corporate sponsorship.”
In terms of metrics of success, TIFF is aiming for 6,000 industry delegates during its first year, about 1,000 more than typically attend the festival. The early-bird cost of a basic market pass is $590 but can go as high as $1,250 for a “Market+ Access Canada” badge (which gives attendees additional access to the three-day Access Canada summit focused on television).
Standing ovations have long been a hallmark of the Cannes Film Festival, running May 12 to 23 this year. The Globe's film editor, Barry Hertz, explains how the length of a movie's applause can signal its success.
In terms of travel costs, Toronto hotel prices are generally more affordable than in other markets. The average Toronto rate a night during the festival is $399, while a Cannes room will run an average of $590, with TIFF sweetening the deal by offering hotel discounts for early-bird attendees. Yet plenty of industry folks have been coming to TIFF for years to conduct unofficial market activity on the sidelines, with no market badges or pavilions necessary.
“The one question we’re getting now from sales agents is, ‘Will buyers be there?’ We’re taking that seriously, and already have 800 buyers coming. But there is a certain chunk of them from North America, so we’ve allocated a sizable budget to invite upward of 200 more from other territories,” says Tremblay, who is no stranger to markets, having launched Canadian distributor MK2 Mile End before working for MUBI.
“The rule is for those buyers, in order to be invited, they had to either have not been coming regularly to TIFF or stopped at some point.”
So far, the industry appears to be lining up behind Toronto, with many of the major sales agencies and national cultural promotional offices à la Telefilm committed to being on the floor of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
“It has the potential to become an important staging post,” says Stuart Ford, chief executive of the L.A.-based sales and financing giant AGC Studios.
“The pace of negotiations in the marketplace has slowed over the past couple of years – conversations begin at a market but are not always concluded. So I foresee that selling process elongating into a year-round dialogue, and if that’s the case, the more opportunities there are for buyers and sellers to meet, the better. I welcome Toronto nestling into that early September slot.”
‘Doors are opening’ for Canadian filmmakers carrying the flag at Cannes
TIFF’s long-standing reputation for being a well-structured festival has its benefits, too, with organizers doubling down on the event’s walkability factor: The convention centre, which boasts its own 1,200-seat theatre, is only a few blocks from the Lightbox and Scotiabank Cineplex multiplexes. TIFF will also use the InterContinental hotel, which is attached to the convention centre, and the nearby Ritz-Carlton as market venues.
“Toronto is always a very organized festival, but to have a structured market will be interesting,” says Dietmar Güntsche, co-head of Germany’s leading independent film distributor and production company Weltkino. “The marketplace overall is very tough right now, especially in Germany. Everybody is hoping that the marketplace will get better, so let’s see.”
No one is arguing that Toronto’s convention centre is the aesthetic equivalent to, say, the Palais in Cannes. And Ontario Premier Doug Ford didn’t help TIFF’s cause when he called the space “one of the worst convention centres anywhere in the world” earlier this year. Yet for many, the primary allure of a TIFF market appears to be what makes the festival itself such a consistent draw: The city’s passionate, movie-mad audiences, whose honest reception to a sales title can make or break multimillion-dollar deals.
“There are no audiences that play better than at the Royal Alex,” says Roeg Sutherland, co-head of media finance at the Hollywood agency giant CAA. “There is such a love of cinema and discovery in Toronto.”