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'I'm devastated," said Daniel Iron. "We were hoping for so much more."

The veteran Canadian producer is obviously joking. In fact, there's been little to lament about critical response to his latest project, Sarah Polley's movie Away From Her, which (in case you've been living under a rock) recently had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

In addition to a distribution bidding war, lengthy list of foreign sales and near-unanimous critical acclaim, the film is now garnering advance Oscar buzz for Julie Christie's star turn as a woman coping with Alzheimer's disease.

"Lions Gate is going to do [an Oscar-nomination] campaign for 2007," Iron confirmed.

Not since Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (in which Polley, fittingly, starred) has there been such immediate domestic and international buzz about a homegrown title.

And like Egoyan's grim, wintry masterpiece, Polley's film is a hard sell at first glance.

The story of an elderly married couple (Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie) coping with the pain of memory loss does not, on the face of it, seem an easy sell to international distributors. But the film's positive critical response bore out in business terms.

The $4.5-million movie created a bidding war that lasted into the wee hours Tuesday.

Around 3:30 a.m., Iron, with the help of the William Morris Agency, finally inked a deal with Lions Gate to distribute the film in the United States. Away From Her has also sold in 26 other territories during TIFF and garnered critical praise domestically and elsewhere. Variety called it "a gracefully wrought study of a long-term marriage."

"I always thought the film was great, but the overwhelming international response was a pleasant surprise," Iron said. "On the face of it, it's not the easiest sell."

Simone Urdl, another producer on the film, agreed. "Obviously we were proud of it, but when you get the reaction you think a film deserves, it's just fantastic."

Polley, who declined a phone interview with The Globe and Mail, is said to be taking some well-needed R&R before rushing off to festivals in Halifax, Sudbury, Montreal and Vancouver.

Robin Smith, head of distributor Capri Releasing in Toronto, was feeling understandably smug (and exhausted after a night of celebrating the Lions Gate deal). His company had the good sense to take on the project as early as the script stage.

"It was Sarah's amazing script," he said. "It just wowed me."

He went on to say that when it got down into international negotiations, "Sarah was very much a part of the process. It was important she be happy with the result."

The film's positive reception has been a boon to a beleaguered Canadian film industry, desperately in need of an international success story.

Even better, said Smith, it has allowed the team that worked on the film to breath a collective sigh of relief.

"We're Canadians through and through," he said, "so we're always questioning, 'Is the bubble about to burst?' And, after all, there haven't been many pretty pictures in the [recent] past. Better to be cautious than over-confident."