Every year good films show at the Toronto Film festival that never open anywhere near you. This year some good films played that may never open anywhere, even if you live in Toronto--or New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin or upstairs over a Landmark Theater multiplex. Toronto is traditionally a lively marketplace for the purchase of film rights for new non-studio product: Indies, docs, foreign films. This year Harvey Weinstein paid $1 million for "A Single Man," and that was that. One sale, one movie, one million -- probably as little as Harvey has paid for a movie in some time.
The makers of independent films don't have to send to learn for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for them. The bottom fell out of the market. That doesn't mean there were no other offers, but it means there were none that the sellers felt able to accept. It shows a collapse of confidence in the prospects of independent film distribution.
The rest is here:
blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/09/indie_alert_level_severe.html
Actually, the American Film Market is the best venue to sell your independent film. It's not about prestige at the AFM so much as business. It's all business. Independent films are easier to sell at The Los Angeles Film Festival as well. So it's not as bad as Ebert thinks if he's only going by Toronto.
Richard
