Paradoxical as it may seem, film festivals — and there are thousands worldwide — feel more important in the streaming era, simply because they turn movies into events, which is effectively the same strategy Disney employs each time it releases a new movie. Home video made movies accessible to consumers — “all the hits, all the time” a Blockbuster commercial once promised — but it also made movies seem less special, more quotidian. It allowed movie lovers to control what they saw, when and where, and, as streaming has only reinforced, it didn’t matter if the image and sound were suboptimal. Home viewing is cheap and convenient, tough barriers for companies still committed to the theatrical experience, as many independent and art-film distributors are.

Festivals reinvest movies with a certain special something, often because the director and performers attend at least some public screenings. After one such showing of his terrific period drama “Martin Eden,” the Italian writer-director Pietro Marcello took the stage for a short conversation about the film, which he adapted from the 1909 Jack London novel. Set in Italy sometime later, it tells the story of a young working-class striver (Luca Marinelli in a wounded and soulful performance) who transforms himself into a famous writer, using culture — as Marcello put it through a translator — “to get ahead” and exact revenge on “those who slighted him.”

Because of both its size and its crucial position at the start of the fall — right after the Venice and Telluride festivals — Toronto effectively functions as a publicity-and-marketing launchpad for many movies. Distributors and sales companies take advantage of the international media presence, including the critics and journalists whose coverage can help bring attention to smaller movies like “Sea Fever” and “Sibyl” — two satisfying, pleasantly off-kilter movies about prickly women whose lives become battlegrounds. Word of mouth remains especially critical for small art-film distributors like Kino Lorber, which will be opening “Martin Eden” in 2020 and doesn’t have deep advertising pockets.