Toronto International Film Festival Tries Adding a Market

The booths, lounges and displays fill the third-floor exhibition hall of the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

Some are manned by representatives of film commissions from around the world, promoting their countries as shooting locations, or hawking local projects in handouts, postcards and branded knickknacks. Production companies, seeking foreign distribution for completed films or potential ones, display posters and play trailers. The booth for RDV Canada, an initiative to promote the local film industry, is the busiest at the moment, the site of a reception, with finger food and beverages aplenty.

Most important, everywhere you look there are tables ready for distributors, executives, agents and filmmakers to pull up a chair and make a deal.

This giant hall is the centerpiece of TIFF: The Market, the newest addition to the long-running Toronto International Film Festival. It is, at least on the surface, a striking departure from the event’s hard-earned reputation. “TIFF was — or is — a festival festival,” Anna Godas, chief executive of the documentary distribution company Dogwoof, said in an interview. “You go to watch films, and the perception, at least for us, is that buyers go there to watch films and not necessarily to do a bunch of meetings.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/movies/toronto-international-film-festival-market.html