Roeg Sutherland, Arianna Bocco, Vincent Maraval & Michael Barker Explain Why They Are Getting Behind New TIFF Market

Roeg Sutherland, Arianna Bocco, Vincent Maraval and Michael Barker Deadline/Courtesy The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) started rolling out its 2026 selection this week with the announcement of Siân Heder’s Being Heumann as the opening film and world premieres for Prima Facie and The Assassin(s). While distribution for Being Heumann is already tied up with Apple through CODA director Heder’s overall deal with the platform, both Prima Facie and The Assassin(s) will be looking to tie up North American and international deals on the ground. With much of the sales and distribution film biz taking a breather in the dog days of the summer, deal-making is on the back-burner, but TIFF is aiming to fire it up again this September, earlier and more vigorously than usual with the inaugural edition of its first official market.

Watch on Deadline Related Stories Festivals TIFF's 51st Edition Sets Siân Heder's 'Being Heumann' As Opening-Night Film Acquisitions Cannes Breakout 'La Bola Negra' Sells Out For Goodfellas As Spanish Drama Eyes Awards Season Run Running September 10-16, with it main hub in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, a stone’s throw from the TIFF festival hub, the new initiative had signed up some 150 exhibitors and promotional bodies by end June. Alongside building on the unofficial North American market that has long coalesced around festival titles and big-name packages, the aim is to jumpstart international sales activities previously gathered under TIFF’s Industry sidebar which never fully came back after the physical hiatus of the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether the international sales and distribution community will fully embrace the inaugural edition or rather take a wait and see approach.

With exactly nine weeks to go until its kick-off, packaging, sales and distribution heavyweights Roeg Sutherland, Arianna Bocco, Vincent Maraval and Michael Barker, who are also members of the 15-person TIFF Market Advisory Committee, tell Deadline why they are getting behind the new initiative. First and foremost, they say, its addresses a gap in the film festival and market calendar for sales between Cannes in May and Berlin the following February, not filled by either Rome’s MIA market in October or the AFM in November. “We’re not trying to start a market in Toronto, we’re trying to address a need where September is kind of a cornerstone: people get their budgets back…

and are figuring out what they’re going to be doing for the next year,” says CAA Media Finance Co-Head Sutherland. He praises the AFM’s return to L.A and revamped format in the Fairmount Century Plaza location but suggests TIFF’s September slot trumps the former’s November dates.

“Being able to launch sales on a movie right after the summer break allows it to go into production in January or February. If you’re launching a movie in November, the best-case scenario is April and May; with the EFM, it’s June or July; while with Cannes, it’s August,” he says. “Of course, all these markets can have a longer lead, but to make a movie in the first quarter of next year, you really need to launch it in the market as early as September…

Toronto, just from a timing perspective, fills a need that I think the market has as a whole.” Mubi SVP of Global Distribution and Acquisitions and former IFC Film head Bocco concurs on the timing and also points to the benefits of the market running alongside a festival. “We’re a very unique company in this scenario as we produce films, we acquire films, and we sell films, so to have a market in the fall where we have the ability to do all three of those things creates an efficiency,” she says.

“It makes planning a lot easier.” “As a buyer, we’re always nine months ahead of the calendar year… so to be able to go in September to plan our 2027 slate…

and see finished films, packages and promos that creates an efficiency that currently doesn’t exist,” she adds. Goodfellas and The Veterans co-founder Maraval believes the combination of the market and festival could draw in Asian buyers, who remain out in force in Cannes, and also attend the EFM, but are less present at the AFM. “The problem with the AFM is that they [Asian buyers] don’t pre-buy much anymore, so you need a market where you screen completed films and pre-sell films…

they’re not going to cross the ocean for 10 projects, especially now, when local markets are doing well with local films,” he says. “It’s good to recreate the dynamic of Cannes or Berlin, where they know three or four films will come out of screenings that could work in their cinemas.” In a sign of his belief in the new TIFF market, Maraval is taking a Cannes-strength Goodfellas sales team and will also be out in force with The Veterans, alongside co-founder Kim Fox.

“We’re always at Toronto with films, both in and out of the selection, as well as with presentations of upcoming projects. What’s changing this year is that the whole Goodfellas sales team is coming, and we will