When people tell me that the Toronto International Film Festival tries to do too much, I laugh and laugh. Exactly which number (the press office loves numbers; it scatters them about like confetti) is too high? The 326 films culled from 2,600 submissions? The 54 countries that are offering films, including 115 from Europe and 32 from Asia? The $8-million that festival-goers leave behind? (No store on Bloor Street objects to that one.)

Naysayers claim that the buying and selling of films at the market doesn't complement the screening of them for the public. But tell that to director Kathryn Bigelow, who sold her feature The Weight of Water at the market here last year, largely on the strength of the festival audiences' response.