New York Times
As of Monday afternoon, the moment of reckoning was fast approaching for the hundreds of filmmakers, stars, executives and others who have gathered at the Toronto International Film Festival to sell their wares, and, beyond that, to discern the fate of an independent-movie business that is no longer quite as grand as its glittering conclaves. Off screen, the festival’s theme has been one of distress. In an opening-night address on Thursday, Piers Handling, the festival’s director and chief executive, said that “economic calamity” — in the world at large and in the film industry — had informed the year’s film selections. At the halfway mark in the 10-day gathering, the vast majority of more than 140 films that showed up in search of American distribution were in the same boat, according to a count by the Indiewire news service. There had been no sale to match last year’s auction of “The Wrestler,” whose Toronto screening set off a bidding war that left the winner, Fox Searchlight Pictures, in possession of a prize contender. Neither had anyone yet seen a new “Slumdog Millionaire,” which roused the crowd in Toronto a year ago and went on to win eight Academy Awards for Fox Searchlight and its various partners on the film.