Canadian filmmakers Denis Villeneuve and Vincent Biron pose for a photo at this year's TIFF. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)

NOTE: This entry was submitted Sept.18.

By Anastasia Tubanos, citizen contributor

A couple of years ago, there was a story about two brothers, Matt and Jeff Campagna, who "crashed" the Toronto International Film Festival to sell their indie film Six Reasons Why, a post-apocalyptic Western shot in the badlands of Alberta. Although this isn't at all standard behaviour, these boys used guerrilla marketing tactics (we're talking James Bond stuff, like making fake IDs and schmoozing stars like Susan Sarandon at VIP parties) to cleverly weave through the system, find a sales agent who appreciated their chutzpah and ultimately signed them on to sell their film to ThinkFilm in a quarter million dollar bidding war.

In the age of the internet and filming anything and everything, the boys ended up posting video blogs about their occasionally unbelievable infiltration. TIFF caught wind of it, found it pretty amusing, but ultimately asked the boys to take it down for obvious legal reasons. I can't help but wonder if it has to do a bit with wanting to remove any public evidence that their system could be infiltrated like that. Just saying.

The point is: how friendly is TIFF to emerging filmmakers? Sure, it's not technically a sales market film festival the way the Cannes International Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival are. But according to Paco Alvarez, president of Forward Motion Entertainment, an international sales and distribution company, TIFF is poised to become a major sales market and emerging filmmakers should be taking advantage of this.

"TIFF is absolutely the place to meet a sales agent, but you have to do your homework," says Alvarez. "You need to register or find a delegates list from somewhere, whatever it is you have to you, you do it. Find where the sales and distribution guys are set up. Get their names. Then get in touch with them. Just be sure your film meets their lineup."

TIFF also has something called the Filmmakers' Lounge  -- formerly the Match Club
-- where industry professionals can come together to learn from experts, network and make the contacts they need to move ahead in their game.

Although the festival passes range from $600 to $800, there's something called the Networking Pass that's available for $377.90 and gives the delegate access to all industry locations and events, including the Filmmakers' Lounge.

"It's a lot of money for an emerging filmmaker, but it could be the best investment they're making for their film," says Allison Lawrence, a spokesperson for the Filmmakers' Lounge and communications specialist for Astral Media's Harold Greenberg Fund. "If they can find a way to get an industry pass, it's extremely valuable and there are a lot of relationships they could be making. It's what this industry is all about."

Alvarez agrees, but adds that getting into the festival isn't the be all and end all. Although what the Campagna Brothers did was out of the ordinary, he says their example shows what the indie filmmaker's best weapon is: creativity.

"They're fast and nimble and fearless and sometimes that's what it takes to get noticed," says Alvarez.

You can follow Anastasia throughout #TIFF10 at @atubanos