Each year you hear a lot about the precision balancing act performed by the Toronto International Film Festival — the way it has managed to placate both smitten stargazers and serious cineastes in remarkably equal proportion.

But there’s also a third faction to which TIFF must equally cater, although they don’t tend to get a lot of play: The buyers.

With virtual chequebooks in hand, whether representing big studio specialty divisions or smaller film distribution outfits, they descend upon TIFF each year looking for the next Slumdog Millionaire or The Wrestler.

And in recent years they haven’t been a particularly happy lot.

Their beef was that pickings were mighty slim and getting slimmer since too many films were premiering in Toronto with distribution already in place.

If TIFF wanted to uphold its reputation as a true discovery festival and not just a rent-a-fest for big Hollywood studios to launch their annual awards hopefuls, then they had to program more unspoken-for titles at the risk of having to dim a bit of that trademark star wattage.

As it turned out, Toronto was able to please all concerned by considerably boosting this year’s sales inventory without stinting on that marquee value.

Among those titles up for grabs: Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, an erotically-charged drama starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and hot up-and-comer Amanda Seyfried (she also appears in the TIFF entry, Jennifer’s Body); the buzz-worthy A Single Man, starring Colin Firth (he just won a prize at Venice his performance) and Julianne Moore yet again; and Get Low, a perky period piece starring Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek.

Although all of the above are sure to find a home, thanks to the present economy it will be unlikely any will top the estimated $4 million Fox Searchlight plunked down at last year’s TIFF for The Wrestler.

With prospective buyers electing to circle for an extended period before pouncing, well aware that in this business the sooner titles get snapped up, the higher the selling price, this year’s TIFF marketplace took longer than usual to click into gear.

But buyers still came out in full force to sample the merchandise, and while they often prefer to attend public screenings in order to gauge how well a movie plays to a paying audience, they also pack the advance press and industry screenings.

And it’s fairly easy to tell them apart from film critics, not just because they tend to wear more expensive clothes.

They’re the ones who immediately grab up all the aisle seats, allowing them to beat a hasty retreat if they just don’t see anything commercially viable in that downer, post-apocalyptic drama set entirely in a cave.

Conversely, if they see dollar signs in front of them, they also likely make a break for it long before the lights come back up, immersed in their BlackBerries as they dash to the exits, tripping over all those hapless critics on the way out.

So just remember, the next time you hear the word “underdog” in the big Oscar race, there’s a good chance it was someone at Toronto who paid a decent sum for that puppy.

Michael Rechtshaffen, a Canadian entertainment writer based in Los Angeles, appears Wednesdays and Sundays